The plant that never blooms
by B. Murakawa
Summary: Quatre Winner is the rich young heir of the Winner family. So when members of an extremist Christian cult target him, his sisters will do anything to protect him--even hire an ex-Gundam pilot as a bodyguard.
1. Chapter One

Warnings: 5x4, implied 3xC and 1x2; character death later on

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or the characters in this story (except for those not in the series); I don't own the poem quoted below; it belongs to Pablo Neruda.

Author's Notes: Written for the OTP contest. My first completed Gundam Wing fanfic! Though I have taken numerous artistic liberties (and know next to nothing about politics and etc.), I hope the plotline hasn't veered too far from the plausible, and that I have kept things fairly in character. Also, a little AU as far as the history of the Winner family goes. A thousand thanks to my beta reader/editor, Kiyakotari-san; any mistakes are mine alone.  
  
**The plant that never blooms**  
  
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,  
  
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.  
  
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,  
  
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.  
  
I love you as the plant that never blooms  
  
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;  
  
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,  
  
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.  
  
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.  
  
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;  
  
so I love you because I know no other way  
  
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,  
  
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,  
  
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.  
  
--Pablo Neruda  
  
**Chapter One**  
  
1/  
  
"Who are they?"  
  
Quatre Winner was surprised by how even his voice was. It contained no frightened quaver, no heavy pause. Just calm. Control. This was the most control he'd had in a long time.  
  
"We don't know," Rashid admitted reluctantly. He was head and shoulders taller than anyone else in the room, and his angular face was lined with worry and age. He was noticeably irritated. "They didn't leave names, and we haven't been able to track the call. There was only that damned message."  
  
"Could you play it again?" Quatre asked the man nearest the computer. Earlier Rashid had explained that every communications port in the building was hooked up to computers that recorded all data sent and received. A nervous techie had added that this particular computer, a rather old model that was mostly used in reception to keep up with daily appointments, and was the only one that had been able to retain the short voice message. "The other computers is flashin blue and sayin ain't no messages received today, sir." The techie had held out his hands in a what-can-you-do gesture.  
  
A soft whirring sound filled the room. Quatre fixed his eyes upon the floor, ears straining for any sound beyond the quiet static. Suddenly a low muffled man's voice filtered through.  
  
"Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: but thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death."  
  
2/  
  
They walked silently down the hallway, a small boy with a halo of golden hair and a man almost too big to be possible. Rashid risked a glance down at his young master, who had not said a word since they'd left the conference room.  
  
"Master Quatre--"  
  
"Don't," warned Quatre, a little sharply.  
  
Rashid didn't reply. He was thinking that before today, any threat to Quatre was vague and somehow distant--impersonal hate, because he was rich, because he was a killer (hard to believe, but true all the same), because he was the only son of the late head of the Winner family. Quatre was never short of invisible enemies.  
  
This was different. This was a specific threat. It was too close to home, and it was clear to Rashid that something had to be done.  
  
"Have my sisters been notified?" Quatre asked softly, his fists clenching tight.  
  
"Yes," said Rashid.  
  
3/  
  
His bedroom was cool and dark and quiet. He could finally hear himself think without a ringing telephone or a worried voice interrupting.  
  
The window was open, and warm damp air danced lazily with the white curtains. The artificial weather system was imitating spring, but somehow it wasn't as wonderful as spring on earth, despite the fact that he'd lived most of his life on L4 and had only been to earth a couple of times.  
  
A plain black piano stood proudly near the window, its polished surface reflecting the pale sky and gray walls of the world outside. Quatre gratefully sank down onto the wooden bench, his fingers automatically resting on the keys, which were cool despite the weather. He fooled around a bit, playing with chords and made-up melodies, and then launched into a simple song he'd learned years ago, when he'd first started taking piano lessons. The sounds felt old and flat.  
  
When his interest waned, he tried to sit at his desk and write letters to people he hadn't spoken to in years, but he couldn't find anything to say.  
  
"It never ends, does it?" he wondered aloud.  
  
Finally, unable to stand the silence, he switched on the radio, flopped into bed, and hid under the covers.  
  
4/  
  
"Bodyguard?"  
  
Quatre's face went very pale when he said it, and his hands were starting to roll up into fists, as they often did when he was nervous or tense. Or both, Hana Winner amended, watching her little brother with some amusement.  
  
"Well, you must know after that awful incident yesterday, we had to take a few preventive measures," Hana said carefully. She tried her best to look serious and unflappable, but her stomach was twisting painfully. Of course Quatre would end up going along with whatever she ordered, but if he wasn't happy with it he'd end up doing his whole passive-aggressive thing and run off any bodyguard that dared to show its face.  
  
"I--I don't think--the Maganac Corps are perfectly capable of--"  
  
"Oh surely you aren't suggesting that the most capable fighters in the entire colony cluster abandon their posts and rush to your aid, Quatre?" She frowned. "What you need is someone who can watch you at all times-- someone who won't stick out."  
  
"But Hana--"  
  
"I've already found the perfect man!" She exclaimed, a huge smile spreading over her face. She'd once taken a course in advertising, and presentation was the crux of any sale.  
  
"M-man?" Quatre said faintly. Now he was decidedly pink.  
  
"A woman wouldn't exactly be practical, would she? I mean, she couldn't accompany you to the restroom or anything like that."  
  
"I . . . see."  
  
"I couldn't trust my dear, innocent little brother with a woman, anyway." The smile became real for an instant, and then she hurried away.  
  
5/  
  
He was not so much a man as a man in the guise of a boy. Two years had lent him neither height nor width--only his eyes betrayed his age. When he'd accepted this job, he'd been a little out of his head; too much beer and not enough sleep, as well as the fact that he was poor and alone in an apartment on L3, wasting his time hanging around the circus with Barton when it came through and doing errands for local businesses, neither of which were honorable pursuits.  
  
Still, it was good money, and good money was the only thing that could buy good alcohol, which he'd grown rather fond of.  
  
Now he regretted his rash acceptance. He'd never known Winner very well even when they'd both piloted Gundams, and two years could do a great deal to a person. Hell, he was living proof.  
  
He'd been told to meet Winner at the estate, and then remain with him indefinitely until the danger had passed. It had seemed such a fine idea when Winner's representative had approached him with it--generous pay and a chance to get away from L3, thank the gods. But what was he supposed to say to the guy he'd once fought alongside of, someone he'd called comrade even though he hadn't really known a thing about him besides that he was rich and seemed to really like tea?  
  
"No looking back," he muttered, and stepped out of the grubby taxi, handing the driver a couple of the strange coins that served as money on L4. It had been a bitch to have to switch all of his cash (okay, so it wasn't much) over from L3 notes, but it wasn't as if he'd had a choice; he suspected he'd be here for a while.  
  
"Hey kid, you're short," accused the driver.  
  
For a stunned moment the boy thought this was an insult. Then he noticed the outstretched hand and had to fight back his hot embarrassment. He pressed another coin into the man's hand and quickly retreated into the shadows cast by the manor house as the cab roared away.  
  
No guards stood by the doors, but he caught sight of a telltale blinking red light concealed by shrubbery--there had to be tons of surveillance equipment positioned all over the property. He stood for a moment, wondering if he should knock, and then the door decided for him by swinging open and revealing a petite blond boy who could only be Quatre Winner.  
  
"You must be--" Winner said, then did a double take. "Chang Wu Fei! What are you doing here?" Before Wu Fei could think of an answer, Winner had taken hold of his arm and led him through the elaborate, European-style entrance hall into the parlor. In no time at all, both boys were seated at a glass coffee table, Winner sipping his tea and Wu Fei absently sniffing his (he didn't like whatever it was the tea was flavored with).  
  
"I haven't seen you in forever! What brings you here?" Winner asked eagerly.  
  
Wu Fei assumed wryly that none of the other ex-pilots had been much in contact with Winner, either, and that the boy was desperate for news of the outside world. He also supposed that Winner had not been informed who his bodyguard would be, if he had been informed that he was to have one at all.  
  
"Business," he said simply.  
  
"Oh! Do you have a position at one of the plants...or are you a technician-- "  
  
"Getting colder," interrupted Wu Fei dryly. Imagine, him, a technician! Not, he amended mentally, that it was any more preposterous than him being an errand-boy.  
  
"Forgive me," Winner said. "Of course you wouldn't be here if you'd . . . well, why are you here? Business can mean a thousand different things."  
  
"I'm--"  
  
A door near the rear of the room swung open and admitted a ragged bear of a man who was so large he dwarfed everything else. Wu Fei experienced a brief moment of disorientation, then realized the guy was one of the Arab henchmen that Winner carted all over the place. He remembered them vaguely, and they always put him on edge because he didn't completely trust people who depended so absolutely on one another.  
  
"Master Quatre," said the Arab man, nodding respectfully to Winner.  
  
Wu Fei stood and bowed politely. He kept his eyes warily on the other man the whole time.  
  
"Mr. Chang. I trust you encountered no problems on your trip here?"  
  
"No," affirmed Wu Fei. He'd arrived on a public shuttle, first class, after having spent nearly an hour eating peanuts and debating whether or not to aim a couple at the man sitting behind him, who had snored so loudly Wu Fei could feel the vibrations. Besides the hassle with switching over from L3 currency, it had been a rather tolerable trip.  
  
"Wait, you--you knew Wu Fei was going to be--" Winner frowned. "But--"  
  
"Mr. Chang will explain everything to you as soon as he is settled--your things should be arriving soon, by the way," this said to Wu Fei, who had been wondering about that, anyway. He didn't have many possessions, but what he did have was very important and he regretted not transporting the bags himself.  
  
"'Things'--Wu Fei, you're not staying here, are you?"  
  
"It's part of the job description," said Wu Fei evenly. "I'm afraid we'll be spending a great deal of time together, Mr. Winner."  
  
"You . . . you're my bodyguard?" Winner ventured hesitantly, his voice cracking a little on the last word. The color drained from his face.  
  
"Yes," said Wu Fei, leaving no room for argument or even conversation.  
  
6/  
  
When Quatre had first settled down to life on his family's L4 estate, Hana had naturally assumed he'd want the beautiful master bedroom with its elegant furnishings and elaborately painted ceiling, which depicted a mischievous god and his gang of wild angels, a masterpiece that was full of irony, considering the Winner family's religious position. It had been the late Mr. Winner's room, and the traces of him still lingered there, from the faint scent of aftershave to the wooden floors scuffed by his pacing feet.  
  
But to the surprise of the manor's inhabitants, Quatre had chosen to take up residence in a room on the fourth floor, which had never been used because it had never been needed. The entire fourth floor had fallen into a mild state of disrepair; its doors were squeaky and its surfaces dusty, though once or twice a month a maid came up to deal with the latter.  
  
Gradually the fourth floor came to life. Two servants were assigned to tidy it up and make sure all of the young master's needs were met. Quatre himself had an old well-loved piano transferred from the parlor to his new room. He spent many afternoons belting out sad melodies on its ivory-white keys, the cries of long-dead soldiers still resounding in the secret chamber of his heart.  
  
Quatre's room was small by Winner standards, but Quatre liked it that way; he liked being able to get from the bed to the piano in seven steps, from the piano to the door in nine. Set in the eastern wall was a simple wooden door, and beyond that a tiny, closet-like room adjoining its larger counterpart. It was into this diminutive room that Wu Fei stepped now, his black eyes expressionless.  
  
"Er, I'm sorry," Quatre said awkwardly, watching the Chinese boy scrutinize his new home. "I never expected anyone would live there, so it's a little...stark." The walls of the room were white and unadorned, and the only furniture was a chair from one of the downstairs rooms and a futon one of the servants had brought in until a bed could be wrestled upstairs.  
  
"This is fine," said Wu Fei quietly. He was carrying his only bag; after it had arrived, Rashid had arranged to have it sent up to the room, but Wu Fei had insisted on taking it himself. Now, he set about unpacking, laying his clothes neatly in a pile near the foot of the futon.  
  
Quatre sank to his knees and watched silently, unsure of himself. It was rare for him to be at a loss for words, having essentially been brought up by diplomats and revolutionaries. But something about Wu Fei commanded silence and thought; it was akin to the way certain scholars made him feel.  
  
How many years had it been since he'd seen this warrior-boy? A little more than two? Yes. The last Quatre had seen of him was after Mariemaia was dealt with, when Wu Fei had joined the Preventers, presumably (according to Duo Maxwell, whose theories were admittedly a bit far-fetched) to be with his older girlfriend, Miss Sally Po. Not that Quatre completely believed Duo's claim. He was sure that Wu Fei was genuinely interested in the well- being of the universe, which raised the question--what was Wu Fei doing here, of all places? Sure he was qualified to be a bodyguard--probably more so than those many years his senior--but why wasn't he still with the Preventers?  
  
Wu Fei pulled from his bag a small brown box with black Chinese characters painted on the lid. Gently he placed it at the opposite end of the futon, where his head would rest. Then he neatly folded up the bag itself and placed it next to his other possessions.  
  
"I'm finished," he told Quatre, who nodded and stood, somehow unable to ask Wu Fei any of the questions plaguing his mind.  
  
7/  
  
Hana knew her little brother by his soft knock. It wasn't brisk and no- nonsense, like her business contacts; nor was it lazy and unhurried, like her other sisters', even the seven that had abandoned the family business in favor of a penniless, artsy life on one of the other colonies (they visited every so often to ask for a little financial help, which Hana couldn't refuse because then they'd ask Quatre, and he'd give them absolutely anything).  
  
"Come in," she called, shutting out of the accounting program on her laptop. Despite being glad to see him, she hoped he wouldn't stay long; she still had a mountain-load of work to do.  
  
He was still shorter than she was, and his blond hair hadn't darkened, though hers had. _I should've been the son_, she thought wryly. He approached the desk, very sincere, very Quatre-like.  
  
"How are you? Not dead yet?" She smiled.  
  
"Why Wu Fei?" He said flatly, ignoring her salutation.  
  
She was tempted to ask him where his manners had gone, and why he was taking this so seriously, but she thought she knew the answer. She knew, but she didn't understand. "Obviously he's very talented; he was a pilot, wasn't he? And I assumed it would be easier for you if the bodyguard was someone you knew, rather than a perfect stranger."  
  
"But why him? Why him specifically? Is there...is there even a reason? Was it just chance, Hana?"  
  
"Not really," she laughed. "I tried to contact the other pilots, but couldn't get to any of them. Even that Barton fellow. Chang was available. He doesn't have any attachments as far as family goes, and he doesn't need to be trained because he's already the best of the best." She shrugged. "Like you, right?"  
  
Quatre gave her a look full of something she couldn't name, and left.  
  
8/  
  
"What's your daily schedule?"  
  
Winner looked up, spoon halfway to his open mouth. It had come as a surprise to Wu Fei that Winner, legal owner of a multi-million dollar company and ex-Gundam pilot, still seemed to like fairly normal things like chocolate milk and the sort of cereal that had marshmallows in the shape of dinosaurs.  
  
_You learn something new every day_, he thought.  
  
Wu Fei himself had been appalled at the thought of eating something so full of sugar, and he'd asked if there were any rice or eggs or something.  
  
"Well, yes," Winner had said, smiling. "But I don't know how to cook."  
  
Wu Fei had raised an eyebrow.  
  
"I've never really had to, have I?" Winner had said defensively. "Abdul had a monopoly on the food supply in the Maganac Corps camps, and here at home we have servants."  
  
"How did you manage when you were on your own?"  
  
Winner had shrugged. "Restaurants."  
  
So Wu Fei had made his own breakfast (there not being a servant in sight-- Winner said they generally only made meals at certain times during the day, and ten in the morning wasn't one of them). Now he was finished with it, though Winner was still playing with the dissolving marshmallows in his bowl.  
  
"Since I've been assigned to stay with you indeterminately," Wu Fei said briskly, "you must give me a detailed list of all of the places you frequent--work, school, et cetera."  
  
"Oh." Winner blinked. "I usually work during the day. I used to go to the headquarters, but recently I've been doing all my paperwork here. And I'm being tutored until I can be sent to university."  
  
"Tutored?" Wu Fei felt his face drawing up into an expression of disbelief, but quickly schooled it back to cool indifference. He'd always imagined someone as rich as Winner would go to one of those posh private schools. "If you're at home all the time, what do you need a bodyguard for?"  
  
"I don't stay at home all day," Winner said. "In my free time I usually just go wherever I please."  
  
"Really," said Wu Fei. "Like where?"  
  
9/  
  
It was an ocean, but not really. For one, far off in the distance was the barely visible line of the horizon, jagged with trees. And the air wasn't quite right. It didn't smell like salt and sand and all of the other smells that make the ocean special.  
  
But the dunes were real enough (though undoubtedly man-made), and it was atop one of these that the two boys sat, backs to the shiny black car they'd arrived in and the patiently waiting driver.  
  
"My father loved this place," Winner said in the quiet, thoughtful tones of one who is lost in memory. "He commissioned it years and years ago, though he hardly ever came here himself. He was too busy with the upkeep of the rest of the colony. I've known about it ever since I was a small boy. My sisters and I used to play on the beach when the weather was hot. This is the off-season, but I like being here anyway... " His rambling trailed off into silence.  
  
Wu Fei breathed in deeply. No, the air wasn't quite right. "You realize you must stop coming here," he told the other boy. "No doubt whoever is after you is well aware of this place, and any other place you frequent."  
  
"Oh no," said Winner softly. "It's quite safe--I own this beach."  
  
"Exactly. And I'm sure everyone in the colony cluster and probably beyond knows that." Wu Fei stood and brushed sand off his pants. They were plain, sensible black, and he'd made a point of tucking in his western-style shirt, though Winner dressed more casually in t-shirt and jeans. Vaguely Wu Fei was curious at this change; there had been a time when Winner's attire was immaculate, rich-boy slacks and button-down shirts.  
  
"Yes, well . . ." Winner seemed to purposely avoid Wu Fei's gaze. "You are my bodyguard."


	2. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**  
  
1/  
  
Trowa Barton searched the crowd for any familiar faces. He was up for acrobatic juggling tonight (the Solis twins were both feeling under the weather, though drunk was a far more accurate description), and there were still four other acts before his.  
  
He gave up his search and retreated out of the vivid lights illuminating the big top, away from the cheering crowd and the charismatic ringmaster. The night outside was shockingly quiet in comparison, and Trowa darted past the small trailers and tents, nodding to people he knew, ignoring those he didn't. The trailers were rusted, and the tents a little dirty; some had small decorations, like crucifixes above the entrances or writing in the inhabitants' native language scrawled across the exteriors.  
  
Cathrine's trailer was by far the smallest and the most derelict though she fought an endless war against rust and dust that she could never quite seem to win. "What can you expect?" She'd laughed self-consciously an eternity ago when Trowa had seen her home for the first time. "I'm a woman without a husband or a family, and it's not like my job does much beyond putting food on the table."  
  
"So why don't you quit?" Trowa had asked tonelessly.  
  
A strange, thoughtful smile had crept over Cathrine's pretty features. "Oh, I don't know," she'd sighed.  
  
Now Trowa hesitated by the entrance, his face lifted to the black sky. Her words kept coming back to him when he was too tired and numb to cry, when he couldn't find the strength to care. Not a question but a statement, coated in old desires and a certain understanding that this was as good as it got.  
  
The old wooden stairs that had once led up to the metal door had finally rotted through late last year, and Trowa had to hoist himself up about a meter, swinging his long legs onto the cheap linoleum and climbing gracefully to his feet. The many lamps gave off deep golden light, suspended as they were from the ceiling and the walls, balanced on the edges of tables and counters. Cathrine never could stand the dark.  
  
Trowa was not particularly inclined to be neat, and neither was Cathrine, but they managed to keep their quarters presentable and, thanks to a mutual fear of cockroaches, bug-free. The worst aspect of the place, Cathrine claimed, was that it had no curtains. It was a bit of an obsession with her. She couldn't afford them, though sometimes Trowa tried to save up for a set, always managing to come across the money just as prices went up and wages down.  
  
He was somewhat surprised to find a few lamps tipped over and clothes scattered across the floor, along with a multitude of other possessions. It looked as if someone had dumped out the drawers and cabinets and then stomped all over the mess.  
  
In the center of the room, on her knees, hair falling in soft auburn waves around her face, was Cathrine. Trowa's footsteps were muffled by the clothing, and he was nearly on top of her by the time she looked up.  
  
"Oh, oh Trowa." Something flickered in her expression, and then she was smiling like usual, balling up the sequined skirt she'd been holding. "Aren't you up soon? I mean, isn't your act--"  
  
"I have a while," he replied, his voice flat and emotionless. He wanted to ask if she was all right, if something had happened while he'd been away. He stopped himself, fearing her scorn; anyway he wasn't a soldier any longer, he shouldn't be freaking out over small things. "What are you doing?"  
  
"Oh, I--I'm just straightening up," she said, averting her eyes. Her long fingers burrowed into the soft fabric of the skirt she was still holding. "This place is such a dump, I thought I'd try to organize a bit."  
  
He gingerly picked his way to the tiny room that served as a kitchen, and scrounged around aimlessly, not really planning to eat because he performed best on an empty stomach.  
  
"So. So Trowa, you--you got a call today." Cathrine's voice started out shrill and slowly deepened to her usual calm alto. "I wrote the number--" Sounds of rustling. "--Right here. You should return the call after your act, don't you think?"  
  
And then she was by his side, her arms crossed and a tiny piece of paper poking out of one tightly clenched fist. The golden light caught in her eyes, made them flash gray and blue. "You'd better get going," she said anxiously, and smoothed out the paper and held it out for him.  
  
He took it.  
  
2/  
  
Trowa was sensible even at the worst of times. He'd been a terrorist and a murderer. He wasn't afraid of death or pain, and everything else paled in comparison.  
  
Upon the paper was scrawled a phone number in Cathrine's messy script. He walked to the nearby grocery store and asked if he could make a call.  
  
3/  
  
In the end it wasn't the money that convinced him. He wasn't bitter like some ex-soldiers; he'd never assumed that after the war he'd be rewarded in any way. Money meant nothing to him except as a means to an end.  
  
He told Cathrine that he'd given them a tentative no, and she bit her lip and said, "But Trowa, you must know that there're opportunities outside of the circus." And then more quietly, "We could have curtains."  
  
The next day he dialed the number again, and said yes.  
  
4/  
  
A pair of knives missed the wooden target and clattered to the ground. Patiently Cathrine scooped them out of the dirt and positioned them in her hands again. She'd been doing this for hours. Repetition calmed her down.  
  
She thought of Trowa mostly--what he'd like for dinner tonight, what she had to pick up from town for him, whether or not he'd give in to her brushing his hair back just once. Occasionally a dark thought stalked along the border of her mind, but she stubbornly held it at bay. She had to be smart about this.  
  
_I don't want him to go_, she thought, and immediately berated herself. Wanting something and having it were two entirely different things.  
  
There had been no phone call, but she didn't feel at all guilty for lying to Trowa about that. There had only been Cathrine answering the door, drowsy from a much-needed nap and wondering how on earth Trowa was back so soon, but it hadn't been Trowa on the ground a meter below her. A man, impossible to tell his age or even anything beyond that he was perfectly average, had politely told her that there were a number of other men in the near vicinity and if she made any sudden moves they would shoot her. Then he'd smiled, and asked if she understood, and she'd said "Yes," though she hadn't.  
  
"I'd like to discuss your brother," the man had said, still impeccably cool, his suit rumpled by the humidity and his eyes friendly. "I'd like to discuss him in great detail."  
  
She knew Trowa would have thought of something cunning at that moment, would have found some way to escape, but she only stood there helplessly-- weaponless and stunned--and told the man what he wanted to know, and listened to his instructions, and wrote down the number.  
  
"We'll be looking forward to his call," the man had said. "And he will call. Because if he doesn't, I don't think he'll like it very much. Neither will you."  
  
And that was as good as a death threat, and hate had welled up inside Cathrine so strong and bitter she'd wanted to hit this man, though that was stupid and suicidal. He'd left, and she'd closed the door, numb. Turned. Found every drawer in the house upturned, her life scattered across the floor. Realized she hadn't heard a thing. Bit her lip, and set to work cleaning it up.  
  
Trowa had called, thinking it was a simple job offer, and had refused, and of course she'd pushed him into rethinking his decision, and he had rethought, and given in, and now he was going to leave. Of course he was going to leave.  
  
She began to hate herself. 


	3. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three**  
  
1/  
  
He woke with one foot poking outside the warmth of his blankets; shivering, he pulled it back in. Shreds of a dream filtered through his sleep-clouded mind but--there, it was gone. The world slowly came back into focus. The sky beyond his window was paling from black to blue, night giving way to dawn. Within these walls no one stirred.  
  
Peace fell around Quatre in soft folds. He forgot that he was anything more than a drowsy young man in a comfortable bed, listening to the creaking and groaning of an old house.  
  
The soft slide of feet upon a wooden floor didn't so much invade Quatre's quiet serenity as enhance it. A tiny yellow bar of light stretched from under the door leading into Wu Fei's small quarters--Quatre stared at it sleepily, comforted and at the same time wondering why Wu Fei was up so early.  
  
Quatre's toes touched the carpeted floor before he was aware of what he was doing, and then he was across the room, pulling Wu Fei's door open and... Watching.  
  
The movement was fluid and beautiful, like water swirling in a clear glass, and then it was as sharp as sudden sunlight. Quatre didn't know anything about martial arts, but he was sure that this was what Wu Fei was doing. The Chinese boy's eyes smoldered beneath fine black brows, so intensely focused that he didn't notice Quatre standing silently in the doorway.  
  
One combination of fists and feet moved to another, the slender body bending and twisting from form to form. The very air seemed to dance with energy, and Quatre fought to keep his breathing slow and his heartbeat steady though adrenaline pulsed just beneath his skin. Something about the way that Wu Fei's white nightshirt kept riding up whenever his arms extended in a powerful punch, revealing the brown flesh of his stomach or his back. Something about the way that his thin lips were parted just a little and he kept sweeping a pink tongue across them.  
  
And then Wu Fei was staring at him, flushed and a little startled, though he quickly assumed an air of cool indifference. His hands fell to his sides and all the tensed power collapsed back into him, like a coiled wire pulled too far out and then released.  
  
"I'm sorry if I woke you, Mr. Winner."  
  
"Please don't--" Quatre's mouth went dry, and he had to force the words out. "Don't call me that."  
  
He'd been Mr. Winner from the cradle onward. He'd learned to read and write perfectly by the time he was seven, and to dance and bow properly and dress well even before that. His father and his sisters had always treated him as a sort of outsider. Of course they hadn't meant it, but it was there all the same, a warm world from which he was excluded because upon his shoulders rested the future of the Winner family.  
  
Wu Fei's smile was sharp. "You are, strictly speaking, my employer. I didn't think 'Quatre-chan' would go over well."  
  
"Just 'Quatre' is fine," Quatre said, a little more calmly. "After all, it only makes sense that we should try to get on well with one another, since we'll be spending so much time together."  
  
"As you wish," said Wu Fei.  
  
By now Quatre was considerably more awake, and his thoughts were no longer in tangles. He was ill at ease--he had intruded on Wu Fei at an ungodly hour of the morning, and really, he didn't know how to explain himself. He wanted to ask Wu Fei about the martial arts or whatever it was he'd been doing. Instead he said, "You'll probably want to have a shower--the bathroom is at the south end of the hall."  
  
Once Wu Fei had gathered up his outfit for the day and stepped noiselessly from the room, Quatre sat down upon the floor, his back to the wall, and purposefully did not think of anything.  
  
2/  
  
Wu Fei was essentially self-taught. Of course, on L5 he'd had many tutors, but a great deal of his knowledge came from old books and self-experience, both of which he valued above formal schooling.  
  
At the moment, he was in an uncomfortable chair of the aristocratic persuasion--lots of sewn flowers upon the cushion, but hardly any padding to speak of--a worn copy of Machiavelli's The Prince open in his lap, though he wasn't reading it. His English was perfect, and in fact he'd read the book years and years before (and quite enjoyed it, though purely from a scholastic point of view--he didn't totally agree with its cold logic). Still, it was much more interesting to observe Winner--no, Quatre-- struggling with a particularly difficult calculus problem.  
  
"Can't we move on to geography?" Quatre inquired hopelessly. The piece of parchment on the desk in front of him was covered in inky scribbles, but all of them seemed to have come to a dead end without a solution in sight.  
  
"No, Mr. Winner," chided the tutor, a trim young woman with a ready smile. She'd had this position for a little over a year, since Quatre's studies had shifted from advanced algebra to calculus, from history to geography (one of his favorite subjects), from political papers and colonial accounts to classical literature, and from English to French (he knew Arabic and Japanese as well). "Keep at it, you're very close."  
  
Quatre tapped his pen upon the desk impatiently. The afternoon sunlight streaked in around the heavy dark curtains, making the shadows in the room even more bleak and oppressive.  
  
"C'est très stupide," the little blond muttered despondently. He scratched down something quickly and drew a little box around it. "Est-ce que c'est parfait?"  
  
"Monsieur Chang ne parle pas français," the tutor said severely. "Vous êtes beaucoup difficile aujourd'hui, Monsieur Winner!"  
  
"I'm sorry," Quatre sighed. "I don't mean to be."  
  
Wu Fei listened to this exchange calmly, though he didn't know any French at all except for a couple of words Quatre had been taught in the few days he'd been Wu Fei's charge.  
  
In fact, the past few days had been very uneventful. There had been no further threats, and mostly the two boys stayed within the manor, Quatre attending his classes and the occasional social call from an old friend of the family, or a business associate. During these meetings Wu Fei was always near, eyes on the guests and one hand discreetly on his gun.  
  
"Are you quite bored, Wu Fei?" Quatre interrupted the Chinese boy's thoughts, ignoring his tutor's displeased grunt. "We've been cooped up in here for so long . . ." He brightened. "You know, we should definitely go out tonight."  
  
"Mr. Winner--Mr. Winner, you haven't even finished--"  
  
"How does that sound, Wu Fei?" Quatre plowed on over his tutor's insistent voice.  
  
Wu Fei surprised himself by saying, "That sounds fine."  
  
3/  
  
Wu Fei blinked when he saw Quatre, standing at the foot of the first floor staircase. The little Arabian was clad in elaborate silk trousers and a long, beautifully embroidered shift of pale blue and gold. His wrists were encased in delicate gold cuffs, and his pale hair appeared softer, wilder than usual, falling in curls around his ears.  
  
Wu Fei bowed, feeling suddenly short of breath. The other boy was stunning to behold, and far overshadowed austere Wu Fei in his black slacks and dress shirt.  
  
"Where is this . . . party?" Wu Fei asked a little suspiciously.  
  
"Now that would ruin the surprise, Wu Fei." Quatre turned and strode through the front door, hardly noticing as the butler bowed to him. Wu Fei followed, frowning.  
  
The night was beautiful, the sky star-studded and clear. A warm breeze lifted the hem of Quatre's outfit as he slid into the back seat of the waiting car and murmured a hello to the driver. Wu Fei cast one last look at the manor and climbed in after Quatre.  
  
4/  
  
"I really did have a, a whatchamacallit. A point."  
  
Quatre laughed carelessly, firelight flickering over his handsome features. His breath smelled of heavy wine and the sweet cakes he'd been gorging on all night.  
  
"Lost it, have you?" Wu Fei observed shrewdly. He hadn't really been listening to whatever Quatre had been saying, but he was very good at pretending.  
  
"Yes, I think so." The Arabian boy leaned into the heat of the dying bonfire, his features relaxed. His loose hair fell into his eyes, hiding them. "I'll find it again, maybe someday."  
  
Wu Fei almost smiled, his body and mind at ease. He suspected that considering who he was and whom he was with, this could not be a good thing. "I'm a bodyguard," he said fiercely, to remind himself.  
  
"That too," agreed Quatre.  
  
The night had gone surprisingly well. Wu Fei, having never been to a celebration instigated by a group of young, single-by-circumstance, former Mobile Suit pilots, had been a little out of his league, but Quatre had walked among the Maganac (those that were on this particular colony, anyway) as if he was one of them. In light of the reverence they directed toward the young Winner heir, Wu Fei supposed this couldn't be too far from the truth. Quatre's clothes were outlandish to say the least--the Maganac attire seemed suitable for a desert climate, and Quatre was like a prince among servants.  
  
Not that Wu Fei had been any less outlandish. He'd hung by Quatre's elbow for more than an hour before one of the Arab men had begged Quatre's presence at some sort of meeting. Wu Fei had stood by himself and watched a line of men making their way around the huge bonfire before a complicated discussion of politics caught his attention, and he unashamedly plunged into the conversation.  
  
Now most of the Maganac Corps had either disappeared from the open clearing (it was surrounded by trees and beyond those, buildings) or gathered into small, exclusive groups to talk among themselves. Quatre had chosen to remain by the fire, Wu Fei by his side.  
  
"Venus, that's it," Quatre said suddenly.  
  
Wu Fei gave him a questioning look.  
  
"The Goddess of Venus, I mean," Quatre tried to clarify. "Look, there she is," and he pointed up, to a yellow point very near the moon. "Rashid told me--long time ago--that the Goddess of Venus is a patron of . . . of love or something. Yes, love. I tease them about it sometimes, because of course they don't really believe in any goddess," he added.  
  
"Ah," said Wu Fei.  
  
"You know, I--I'm glad you're here, Wu Fei," Quatre said earnestly, one hand grasping the sleeve of Wu Fei's shirt. "Sometimes my own room gets so small I want to die."  
  
Wu Fei stared at the thin fingers pressing into the white fabric, warm fingertips almost touching his skin. He thought he might understand, just a little.  
  
5/  
  
Quatre woke to find himself alone and in the dark. His room. Right. At some point he must have changed out of his silk and into cotton pajamas, which now clung to his sweat-slicked skin like mold. Something warm and wet ran down his left cheek and he automatically brushed it off. It was a tear, but he was too caught in a sense of deja vu to care.  
  
He'd been exactly like this before, and there had been soft butter-yellow light drifting underneath Wu Fei's door, but that was not so now. Now all was dark and dark was all. He felt like he should go into Wu Fei's room, and so he did, following a script that he'd used already.  
  
Wu Fei's room was pitch-black, having no windows, and Quatre fell to his knees and listened. A wet, swallowing sound, and then Wu Fei's smooth baritone, "What is it, Quatre?" Quatre realized this was the first time Wu Fei had really addressed him by his given name, and a pleasant little ache sprang up in his belly. He crawled forward, one hand stretching forth into nothing and then there was the edge of the futon, soft and pliant, and some part of Wu Fei that was warm and alive. Wu Fei didn't pull away, but didn't move to turn on the light or help Quatre up, either.  
  
The something within Quatre that picked up on people's feelings, that functioned a bit like an emotional radio, throbbed in painful sympathy. He gasped, and coughed to cover it up. Wu Fei had been hiding for a very long time, anger building up and building up and now it was seeping out of him like a deadly toxin, invisible but terribly destructive.  
  
Quatre pulled himself into a comfortable position, his hand reluctantly leaving Wu Fei. There was the clear chink of a glass being set down, and Quatre said, "Are you drunk?"  
  
"No," said Wu Fei gruffly, but Quatre knew he was lying. "What, not sophisticated enough for you, am I?"  
  
"You're all right." Quatre closed his eyes to stop them for searching for the Chinese boy in the darkness. "Where were you before . . . before you came here, before you--"  
  
"It doesn't concern you," Wu Fei said, irritation evident in his tone.  
  
"All right." A silence that was not quite companionable fell between them. Quatre absently stroked the side of what must have been the bottle Wu Fei'd been drinking from. It was warm from where his hands had held it. "Did they let you hear the message when you took this job?"  
  
"Yeah. Had to demand it, though. Very close-mouthed, your Maganac guardian."  
  
Quatre chortled softly. Wu Fei was probably referring to Rashid. "He really is."  
  
"So, are you a devil-worshipper? A Satanist?" Wu Fei let out a harsh little laugh. "A witch?"  
  
"No," said Quatre. "I'm not really anything. Of course, the Winner family has always professed to be Muslim--but it's all public relations. Most of L4's inhabitants originate from the Middle Eastern countries on earth, and my father--and his father, and his father's father--all used this to their advantage." Quatre frowned. "I still can't figure out if the person who wants me dead really thinks I'm Muslim, or if he intends to make an example of me. Not," he amended, "that he's right either way."  
  
"He believes he's right." Wu Fei jerked the bottle out of Quatre's grasp. "Doesn't matter if he is or not. People like that only care about themselves."  
  
"Maybe . . ." Quatre sighed. "Maybe he's had a really difficult life. Maybe he was a soldier, or his family was killed in the war--"  
  
"Oh, here's the heroic young billionaire, sympathizing with his would-be killer!" Quatre winced at the scorn he heard in his bodyguard's voice. "Do you want him to kill you?"  
  
"I don't know." Quatre plowed ahead through the sudden silence his admission had produced. "It's like--there's nothing new, nothing happens to me that hasn't happened before. Ever since I . . . destroyed Sandrock--and I'm glad I did, but ever since I've been walking on a path already beaten firm with old footsteps, and I get so tired of it sometimes I could--I could give it all up. All the money and social status and education, I could throw it all away just to get rid of this horrible status quo."  
  
After a while, Wu Fei said, "Here," and shoved something into Quatre's open hands. For a dizzy moment Quatre was sure it was a gun, and Wu Fei was going to ask him to commit suicide, but then it dawned on him that this was the bottle of alcohol.  
  
Quatre brought the mouth of the bottle to his lips, sipped carefully--and sputtered a little on the bitter tasting liquid. He forced himself to take a large gulp, and then handed the bottle back to Wu Fei, not bothering to say thank you because he knew that Wu Fei understood.  
  
6/  
  
Hana looked up as a worried servant entered her office--it was on the first floor of the Winner manor, and much more comfortable than her ultra- professional office at the headquarters of Winner Enterprises. She'd just been gathering together some documents she needed Quatre to sign, and was a little annoyed at being interrupted.  
  
"Miss Winner, we've received a phone call--would you like me to forward it to your private phone line?" The servant's voice trembled, and Hana's brow furrowed in concern.  
  
"Please do."  
  
7/  
  
"But how did he get our phone number?" Quatre said again. "It's not listed anywhere, we've never given it to any of our clients, it . . . it's impossible." His blue eyes were wide and shocked.  
  
"It shows," Hana Winner said patiently, "that the security here must be heightened. And you are not to be out of your bodyguard's sight--ever."  
  
Wu Fei leaned against the doorway of the second-floor computer room, where Quatre had been researching one of his pet projects (endangered bats or something of the sort) before his sister had come to him with a recording of another vaguely veiled threat.  
  
"'Thou therefore, O Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel, awake to visit all the heathen: be not merciful to any wicked transgressors,'" she quoted now, thoughtfully. "I swear, I've etched it into my memory, and besides the fact that it's clearly a . . . a Bible verse condemning non-Christians, I'm not sure what to make of it. Of course," she sighed, "Private Investigator Jordan will surely have some ideas, but probably none pointing to a clear suspect, just as with the other message."  
  
Quatre's fists clenched, and he looked away. A complicated ensemble of emotions flitted across his face--guilt and anger and fear and above all, frustration--but eventually he just said in a defeated voice, "Is there anything I can do?"  
  
8/  
  
The next few days passed in a blur. Wake up, eat, accompany Quatre to his lessons, follow him about his business, watch him fret and worry himself into a self-made hell, eat, practice an old kung fu form, try not to think of anything beyond this stifling lonely house, make sure Quatre sleeps, and dream of what may come.  
  
The monotony wasn't much different from life on L3; hell, he even had a constant supply of good alcohol thanks to his recently acquired paycheck, and the Winners' affection for wine with their dinner. It bothered him how well this lifestyle suited him, and he began to wonder what had happened to the proud warrior he'd once been.  
  
Nataku would have laughed at him, but Wu Fei realized he no longer cared. 


	4. Chapter Four

**Chapter Four**  
  
1/  
  
Trowa supposed he was still on an L3 colony though he couldn't be sure; the men who had come to collect him from the circus grounds had blind-folded him and forbidden him to remove the thick piece of cloth. He hadn't, confident that if he'd wanted to escape, he could have.  
  
The apartment they'd finally left him in was bare and looked like it belonged in some sort of institution. It surprised him that he missed Cathrine's company so much. But there had been no choice as far as she was concerned--he had to carry out this job in solitude.  
  
Now he secured the small laptop the men (his employers?--it wasn't clear one way or the other) had presented him with in an equally small backpack. He wanted to explore the city, become more aware of exactly where he was, but he knew that wouldn't be allowed--he'd been informed that all of his necessities could be found in this plain, windowless building, and he was not to appear in public unescorted under any circumstances. For Trowa, who had survived weeks of isolation in space, this was nothing too new, but he was very hungry after the long trip, and he didn't plan to stay cooped up in this room if he could help it.  
  
Somewhat to his alarm (though really, he had almost been expecting it), Trowa discovered a man was keeping close watch outside the apartment, a man in uniform who nodded congenially to him as he exited. As he walked to the nearest elevator, Trowa noticed the man take out some sort of transmission device and speak quietly into it.  
  
_I'm nearly a prisoner_, he thought. _No freedom or privacy to speak of, and after all, what is a prisoner but someone without these two vitally important things?  
_  
And he found himself thinking of Quatre Winner, even as he entered the elevator and it began to drop him a few stories to the first floor. Quatre was smart and handsome and had everything going for him, but he was a prisoner in a pretty little plastic world, and sometimes Trowa wondered what ever had become of him. He noticed a camera blinking almost imperceptibly under one of the ceiling tiles in the elevator, but he tried to ignore it.  
  
2/  
  
By the end of the first week he was bored out of his mind, though since he was a good soldier he would never have admitted it. His assignment was to come up with plans--strategy was his strong point, but it was long, hard work and his employers had no pity. He had an endless number of blueprints of some unknown location--the building itself, and the grounds around it, and he was instructed to find the best locations to enter unnoticed, and a million other things that seemed very suspicious when put in context, but he was just following orders.  
  
3/  
  
He lost all sense of time, and it seemed he'd been an eternity in the tiny apartment and the cramped sterile hallways of the building itself. The blueprints piled up, along with a few colored photographs.  
  
Orders arrived via the Internet, over secure ISPs and private e-mail addresses that changed every time, though the content was nearly always the same: find a way in, find a way out, no one can be seen. Trowa knew nothing else about his job--he didn't know what the information was used for, he didn't know who owned the huge house, he didn't know who exactly his employers were.  
  
All he knew was that he was making major money, and that when this was over he was going to high-tail it back to L3--take Cathrine on a vacation from the circus, tell her how much he'd missed her.  
  
4/  
  
Trouble came knocking at his door in the form of a man in a fancy uniform, who pointed a gun at Trowa and said, "Come out with your hands in the air."  
  
Trowa obediently did so, his face registering no emotion at all. He didn't even glance over at the laptop open on the small cot that had served as both a desk and a bed. He calmly permitted the man to search him for weapons--he had none--and made no protest when a group of similarly uniformed soldiers stormed into his apartment and began tipping over the plain furniture and rifling through his clothes and other personal possessions. They grabbed the laptop, called in a computer expert, and when he couldn't figure out how to get past a powerful security program, ordered Trowa to show them how--"We know you're a spy, and you have valuable information about a client of ours--say something, you little maggot!" A soldier slapped Trowa hard, but the boy only blinked and said nothing.  
  
"Who put you up to this?" When Trowa was still silent, the soldiers commenced beating him, and then dragged him from the building, semi- conscious.  
  
He found himself some time later in a bright cell, and thought dreamily that it wasn't really much different from the apartment in which he'd spent the past few weeks of his life. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, as the saying went. At least then he'd been paid for being a prisoner.  
  
He didn't see any exit at first, but upon closer inspection he noticed a tiny rectangle etched into the opposite wall--the door probably slid open electronically, in which case there was no chance of escaping as long as he was confined here. He decided he had better inspect the door regardless, but when he tried to sit up he discovered that his wrists were encircled in thick metal cuffs which chaffed a little when he tried to contract his fingers and free them.  
  
Okay, so there was absolutely no way in hell he was getting out of this place so easily, but he had hoped ... he leaned back against the wall, and tried to come up with a brilliant plan of escape, but none were forthcoming.  
  
5/  
  
Cathrine stood outside the grocery store, which possessed the only free telephone in town. The circus had moved on, but for once she'd stayed behind on this tiny, backwards colony because the rest of L3 (and L4 and all the other colony clusters) held no interest at all for her. Trowa was out there somewhere--or maybe on Earth--but she didn't know where, and the only thing she could think to do was to stay put and wait for him to return.  
  
She'd been working as a waitress because sometimes she got free food, and she had to pay for light and water now that this was a semi-permanent residence. By day she played the super-independent woman, making it on her own, needing help from nobody. At night she thought of Trowa and shivered herself to sleep.  
  
It occurred to her that it was unnatural for her to feel this way--after all, Trowa had disappeared many times before. His life had been threatened, as far as she knew, since he was a child. And she thought of him as a brother. So the ache within her shouldn't have been so sharp, and the world shouldn't have been so dark without him.  
  
She pushed the door open and stepped into the grocery store, waving familiarly at the owner. She bought enough food for one person and went home to her empty trailer. 


	5. Chapter Five

**Chapter Five  
**  
1/  
  
Quatre took to joining Wu Fei in his bedroom after all the lights went out, the two boys sprawled out on the futon, legs hanging off for lack of room, a bottle of wine or beer or sometimes whisky propped between them. Usually Quatre did most of the talking if they talked at all--half-bitter stories of days before the war and his father's death. The fact that he never mentioned Trowa Barton, who he had seemed so taken with two years ago, or his Gundam, Sandrock, did not escape Wu Fei's attention, but the Chinese pilot wisely chose not to bring this up. He himself never spoke of Nataku. The memories were still raw.  
  
One night Quatre said, "Do you trust me, Wu Fei?" His eyes glittered in the moonlight, brighter even than the alcohol swirling in the bottom of the bottle he lifted to his lips.  
  
Wu Fei felt something inside of him twist. Did he trust anyone? Of course not. Trust was a sharp knife, and as with all knives it was far better to have a hold on the hilt than on the blade. For some reason he couldn't bring himself to say this to Quatre. Instead, he said, "Do you trust me?"  
  
"With my life," affirmed Quatre, smiling.  
  
After that Wu Fei paid close attention to himself, and to how he acted around Quatre. Gradually he realized that he did indeed trust the Winner heir, though probably not in a way that the other boy would have appreciated. He trusted Quatre not to purposefully kill him, and to listen to him when he thought they might be in danger. But that sort of trust only went so far, and Wu Fei had almost no experience with the other kind. The only people he'd ever trusted had betrayed him in death and dishonor.  
  
Still, it was easy to give in to Quatre. He had a boyish charm, mixed with a gentle maturity far beyond his years. He was intelligent and wise, and had learned how to make a hell of a daiquiri, endearing himself to Wu Fei forever. Considering that the boy was supposedly of Arabic descent, his blond locks and pale blue eyes were almost otherworldly. Yet even at the peak of his idealism, Quatre possessed a comforting down-to-earth quality that never truly left him.  
  
Wu Fei had to struggle to keep himself at a distance. It was his duty to keep this boy alive, and he intended to focus entirely on this objective, especially in light of that last message. The Winners' phone number had been changed, and the security about the manor heightened. Quatre was rarely allowed out any longer, not even to travel to the headquarters of Winner Enterprises. Hana Winner informed him that she would be taking care of all of the aspects of the business now, and if she ever needed him she'd come see him personally.  
  
"But what am I supposed to do in this elaborate prison?" Quatre had asked desperately, still longing for action of some sort on his part.  
  
"Wait," said Hana, worry lining her features.  
  
2/  
  
Rain splattered against the windowpanes, and only gray skylight illuminated Quatre's bedroom. He had enlisted a few servants to clear the center of the room, where Wu Fei now sat in silent meditation. Quatre himself pressed ivory piano keys experimentally, creating musical joy and tragedy by turns.  
  
He launched into a fierce Beethoven piece, then changed his mind and fell back into a soft, quiet song he'd learned years before. The composer was an only recently deceased Chinese man, and Quatre thought Wu Fei might appreciate the serenity of the composition.  
  
"I was on an L3 colony," Wu Fei said abruptly, without opening his eyes.  
  
"What--?" said Quatre, caught off guard. His fingers stalled on the keys, but he quickly resumed the song.  
  
"Before I came here--before I was your bodyguard. I was somewhere in the vicinity of L3. Not," he added, apparently reading Quatre's thoughts, "that I was undercover or anything. I was living off of a tiny income--I was a grocery boy and a messenger. I did odd jobs for whoever was willing to pay a few coppers. Nothing as glorifying as, say, spying or working for the colonial government."  
  
Wu Fei smirked and Quatre realized that his mouth was hanging open. He hastily hid his surprise --he'd never expected . . . well, he'd thought Wu Fei was surely involved in some sort of covert operation somewhere--  
  
"Oh, did you ever--" Quatre felt his face heat up. "--see Trowa? Trowa Barton?"  
  
"Yes. He was still with that carnival thing."  
  
"Circus," Quatre corrected automatically.  
  
"Whatever," said Wu Fei. He stretched out his legs, peering through hooded eyes out at the dreary world. "So now you know what a failure zero-five turned out to be."  
  
"Not such a failure," Quatre protested softly, abandoning the piano to come sit next to his bodyguard. "Look at you, you're a brilliant Gundam pilot-- well, ex-Gundam pilot--and you've been through more in eighteen years than most people ever dream of. So what if you went into a bit of a slump." Quatre exhaled. "Maybe we all did. After the fighting was over and done with, maybe we just all sort of gave up, even if only for a little while. Nothing wrong with that, as long as we don't linger in those moments forever."  
  
Wu Fei said nothing for a few minutes. Then, "You know, you can be really wise for someone not yet two decades old."  
  
"No. I just sometimes hit the proverbial nail on the head." Quatre grinned.  
  
3/

The servants were all over themselves with glee. Gossip filtered from mouth to mouth, and it seemed the hallways were forever filled with shrill feminine laughter and low boyish chuckling. Not a day went by that fuel wasn't added to the fire--and a fire it was by now. Within a week of the first shy murmur, every servant down to the last lowly stable-boy knew that Master Winner was absolutely starry-eyed for his quiet Chinese bodyguard.  
  
"An' ain't it obvious?" a young maid whispered to her scullery maid friend, both ignoring the scolding eye of the head cook. "Never d'you see them one without t'other--never for even an hour's time!"  
  
"'S'not fitting to speak so of the master," the cook sniffed angrily.  
  
"You wouldn't expect Mr. Chang to leave Master Winner alone, wouldja?" The scullery maid blushed. "He's responsible for Master Winner's life, yeah?"  
  
The maid rolled her eyes. "They're together durin' Master Winner's lessons, an' his dinner, an' his bath--"  
  
"No!" The other girl covered her hot cheeks with her hands, eyes wide with disbelief.  
  
"Yes," said the maid with a triumphant smile.  
  
4/  
  
Wu Fei sat with his back to the closed door, listening to the sound of water tumbling into a porcelain tub. Absently he scratched the back of one heel with the opposite foot, smiling when he heard a splash and Quatre's soft cursing. The water must have been too hot.  
  
Eventually the water was turned off, and Quatre climbed into the bathtub amid a symphony of tiny waves.  
  
"You're still there, Wu Fei?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Okay." For a while they said nothing to each other. They were so used to being in one another's company that words were not always necessary, though as for Wu Fei, he certainly didn't mind Quatre's cheerful chatter or subdued monologues. He found he enjoyed Quatre's company no matter what mood he was in.  
  
"So . . . how was Trowa, when you last saw him?" There was barely concealed eagerness in Quatre's voice.  
  
"He was himself, I think," said Wu Fei flatly. At Quatre's frustrated huff, he admitted, "I never had much time to catch up with him--I was . . ." He cleared his throat. "I was skipping out on one of my part-time jobs."  
  
"Oh, really?" Quatre's tone was light, as if he were trying not to laugh.  
  
Wu Fei cleared his throat again, implying that the matter was to be dropped.  
  
Quatre got the message, and instead of harping on at the other boy, said, "I should like to see Trowa again. And of course Heero and Duo as well. I used to keep up a fairly steady e-mail correspondence with Duo, but we gradually gave it up. I guess he's just as busy as I am--er, was, anyway. Now that I'm under house arrest I'm only too eager to be busy once more."  
  
"I'm sure you are," said Wu Fei dryly.  
  
"Trowa . . . he was attached at the hip to that girl," Quatre murmured, reflexively changing the subject. "Catherine, I think her name was."  
  
"Cathrine," Wu Fei corrected.  
  
"Yes. She was very protective of him. And, I guess, he . . . Wu Fei . . ." Quatre sighed audibly. "Wu Fei, do you think that he loves her? Did he seem to--"  
  
"How should I know?" Wu Fei crossed his arms peevishly, unsure why the desperation in Quatre's voice disturbed him so deeply.  
  
5/  
  
Night was heavy on the world, and Wu Fei couldn't find peace. He kept going over and over that conversation in his mind. Never before had he cared so much what another person thought, but he knew that he cared a ridiculous amount when it came to Quatre Winner. Who was currently sound asleep in his bed, snoring softly in the satisfied way that only wealthy boys can, though Quatre's brow was furrowed with perpetual worry.  
  
Almost affectionately Wu Fei smoothed back damp curls from Quatre's pale forehead. "Arabian, my ass," he muttered to himself, lips curling into a sardonic smile.  
  
He wanted to ask Quatre if he'd loved Trowa Barton--and if he still did. Just the thought of it made him itch all over, made him hot and angry, though he didn't know why. Maybe because he didn't think Barton deserved Quatre.  
  
No one deserved Quatre.  
  
"What're you thinking?"  
  
Wu Fei gave a violent start, and then realized the sleepy voice was Quatre's. He tried to salvage what dignity he had left, and said, "Nothing important."  
  
"About me?" Quatre went on as if Wu Fei hadn't said anything.  
  
". . . No. Yes. Does it matter?" Wu Fei got up from where he'd been kneeling, but Quatre caught his wrist in a surprisingly hard grip.  
  
"It matters to me." Slender aristocratic fingers dug painfully into Wu Fei's skin, and he tried to wrench his hand away, but Quatre was stronger than he'd expected.  
  
"Quatre--"  
  
"Do you think I'm useless?" Wu Fei could only see a dim outline of the other boy in the darkness, and he couldn't decide just from the voice if the question was serious.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Do you, Wu Fei?" Deadly serious, and unbearably desolate. An unspoken fear that Wu Fei nevertheless picked up on.  
  
"Come on," he said without thinking, and pulled Quatre up and out of his bed, leading the boy expertly through the dark. He never stumbled or faltered--he knew this room and the one next to it, where he was taking them, too well for that.  
  
He flipped on a light, and caught his breath when Quatre came into focus, excruciatingly vivid and...  
  
Beautiful.  
  
A blush stole across his face, and he fought to compose himself but found that he couldn't. Trying to hide his agitation, he said firmly, "We are going to get so smashed we can't see straight," and produced a rather expensive wine from a tiny refrigerator he'd purchased only days before. Quatre's blue eyes were huge.  
  
"I don't know . . ."  
  
"Here." Wu Fei handed him the bottle, not even bothering to procure glasses. He watched as Quatre reluctantly swallowed the sweet liquid, and then he reached for the bottle himself.  
  
"I think you're trying to make me an alcoholic," Quatre muttered, accepting the bottle back from Wu Fei. They traded back and forth until there was not a drop left, and Quatre was falling-over tipsy, and Wu Fei was getting there.  
  
"Y'know, that was from your own stores," Wu Fei said. "Got it from the kitchen staff."  
  
"Mm," said Quatre, his blond head resting upon Wu Fei's rather bony shoulder. Wu Fei glanced down at him, and on a whim tangled his fingers in that soft, sweat-damp hair, inhaling the familiar soapy, boyish smell. He wanted . . . he wanted to touch this boy in ways he'd never wanted to touch anyone in his life ever before.  
  
It was this more than anything that made him pull away, shrugging off Quatre's weight and climbing unsteadily to his feet. The room spun, shadows cavorting about him teasingly, reaching forth invisible fingers to dance along his spine--he shuddered and collapsed, aching head cradled in shaking arms.  
  
Warm hands grabbed at his, and he kept his eyes tightly closed because he couldn't stand Quatre seeing him like this, and oh gods, he swore he'd never have another drink again if only Quatre would go the hell away--  
  
Quatre's arms were around his neck, breath hot and moist against Wu Fei's sensitive skin. The Arabian boy's body was whip-slender, light and comforting and something just snapped within Wu Fei--years of denied loneliness and the always present yearning for a kindred soul--and he pulled Quatre into a rough, clumsy embrace, burying his face in hair and skin and cloth.  
  
He'd never been so close to another person. He'd never felt a heart beating in sync with his own. And he'd never felt so excited, so elated, so frightened, or so sad. It was the single most brilliant moment of his life, and even as he realized this he wondered if Quatre felt the same, or if this was just some stupid over-reaction.  
  
"Oh," said Quatre, and jerked away, hand covering his mouth. Then he staggered out of the room, and all Wu Fei could hear for a few minutes was muffled gagging from somewhere down the hall. He stood and dutifully followed after the other boy, his ankles threatening to give out from under him.  
  
6/  
  
Pain seared across Quatre's vision when he opened his eyes. Sunlight drifted in through his open window, sending shocks of agony throughout his aching head. He groaned and rolled over, only to end up sprawled across a warm, pliant body that grunted and shoved him away moodily.  
  
"Ow, Wu--Wu Fei!" Quatre yelped, and instantly regretted it--tiny explosions went off behind his eyes.  
  
The Chinese boy's eyebrows were knit together so tightly they formed a delicate V. "What?" he muttered in a raw voice.  
  
"Wu Fei, you--" _You're in my bed_! "You really need to get up."  
  
"Why on--" Wu Fei cracked open one eye, and closed it again quickly. "Shit." Before Quatre could think of anything else to say, the other boy had ripped the blankets away from himself and tumbled to the floor, only to stand erect a second later, his smooth black hair in loose strands around his shoulders instead of in its usual ponytail. He took a few deep breaths and was instantly in control again.  
  
"You were sick on the bathroom floor," he said calmly, "and your sister is going to kill you for getting so drunk. Actually, your sisters, because if your family is anything like mine used to be, they will all know about it by noon today if we don't hurry and clean it up ourselves. Thank the gods those air-headed servants never come up here so early in the day."  
  
With that, he turned on his heel and left Quatre's bedroom, a picture of cool composure.  
  
7/  
  
"Iria is coming home," Hana said that evening, ignoring the sound of her little brother choking and his bodyguard patting him hard on the back. She serenely cut into her steak--forbidden to Muslims, but no one really had to know except for the servants, and she paid them too well for them to gossip about it. It wasn't as if she adhered to the faith in any other sense. As long as Quatre himself made a show of at least partially conforming to it in public, there really was no need for the rest of them to go to extremes.  
  
Which, she thought sourly, was what had gotten Quatre into this whole mess to begin with. Radical Christian assassins--as if she needed any more on her shoulders what with running Winner Enterprises and dealing with both business partners and families with close ties to the Winners--the aristocracy drove her positively batty, and she couldn't wait until Quatre was in and out of University and able to deal with this on his own.  
  
"Wh-what?" Quatre leaned forward, his blue eyes (so like his mother's, but Hana resolutely pushed the thought away--she had never really liked her father's wife, though she loved her brother to distraction) serious for one still so young. "Why?"  
  
"You act as though you aren't looking forward to seeing her," Hana said shrewdly.  
  
"Oh, for the--of course I should like to see her." Quatre stabbed at his steak viciously. "Only I do wish she wouldn't . . ."  
  
Hana leaned back in her chair, folding her napkin neatly and placing her dirty utensils upon it. "She can be a little overbearing," she admitted softly. She noticed that the bodyguard was pretending not to hear, and thought better of him for it. "Have you been keeping up with your studies?"  
  
"Oui," said Quatre a little mockingly.  
  
"You know she only wants you to be your best--we all do. So that one day you'll be prepared for--well." Hana stood without saying anything further and left her brother to his meal.  
  
As she climbed the stairs to the second floor, where her wing of the manor was, she found herself remembering the days when her father had been head of the household, and his wife had made everything beautiful and light--no matter how Hana had despised her for stealing her father away, because she couldn't think of Catherine as her mother. She had no mother. But Catherine had made the Winner family what it was: powerful and respectable. Whoever happened to be in the house came to the enormous dining room, and all ate together like a real family.  
  
Then Quatre had been born, and Catherine had died, and with her whatever semblance of "family" the Winners had possessed. All of the sisters had left the Winner estate, except for Iria and Hana herself, who was the fifth eldest and was, as her father had often told her affectionately, an excellent businesswoman. Iria had helped their father raise Quatre--Hana had taken over as their father's second-in-command at Winner Enterprises. Eventually Iria finished college and by the time Quatre was nine, she was a well-respected figure on the medical scene. Often she'd complained to Hana when they both lived on the estate about Quatre's small rebellions--he'd believed that he was a tool of the company and of their father, and he even went so far as to run away from home at thirteen years of age.  
  
Yes, tensions had always run high in the Winner family, and Quatre's resentment of Iria's over protectiveness was only one more rung added to the ladder. Hana had to admit that she more often than not sided with Iria-- Quatre had to be ready when the time came for him to take control of the Winner family and all of its assets, and he could only do that if he had a solid education. Still, Hana was glad that Iria had taken on the responsibility; she rather enjoyed being in Quatre's good graces.  
  
8/  
  
Quatre kicked savagely at the floor as he walked, ignoring everything around him, not even checking to see if his bodyguard was following him. Wu Fei was, though he was wary of the black cloud he imagined forming over his companion's head.  
  
He knew at least one reason for Quatre's bad mood: a hell of a hangover that was only now dissipating, thanks to time and a few aspirins. And he thought he knew the other reason, though he'd never met Iria and so couldn't pass a judgment either way on her character.  
  
Presently they came to a part of the manor that Wu Fei had never been in but once, when he'd first arrived and had explored every room looking for possible weaknesses in security. He hadn't been outside in so long that the sunlight streaming in through the windows temporarily stunned him. He stood and blinked owlishly, vaguely aware of Quatre's hand on his arm. Beyond the windows a verdant garden separated this wing of the manor from other buildings on the property and the rest of the colony. The colony weather control system was simulating late spring, and the day had been full of sudden showers and abrupt silences during which the giggles and startled exclamations of the inhabitants of the manor could be heard clearly.  
  
"This used to be a ballroom,"Quatre said impassively. "There haven't been any balls for a long time, and no one ever comes in here except for me--I used to hide from Iria when I was very small because she loathes this place. It's haunted, you know. Can't you feel the ghosts in the air?"  
  
Wu Fei didn't know about ghosts, but it was colder in the ballroom than in any other part of the manor. Nevertheless it was a gorgeous room--besides the windows, which were traced with gold curlicues, the walls were a pale pink edged in white. Expensive crystal chandeliers hung from the white and gold inlaid ceiling, and small lace-covered tables edged the outside of the room unobtrusively. The floor was pale marble. It was all very delicate, very European.  
  
Quatre approached a raised dais along the southern wall, behind which was a long, rosewood cabinet. He pulled open the elaborately carved doors and reached inside, only to pull out a beautiful old violin which he cradled in his arms like a child.  
  
He stood for a long while, just staring at the instrument. Then he raised it above his head; by the time Wu Fei realized what he was doing, Quatre had already pitched the violin across the room. It hit the marble floor and shattered into many slivers of wood, the bottom separating from the top completely so forcibly had the boy thrown it.  
  
Wu Fei sprinted across the room before Quatre could grab another instrument from the cabinet and wrestled the boy to the floor, both of them grunting and swearing. Finally Wu Fei succeeded in pinning Quatre to the floor, holding down his arms and legs so he couldn't free himself easily. "What the hell d'you think you're doing!" he gasped furiously. His bad temper went up a notch when Quatre wouldn't even look at him. "I didn't think senseless destruction was your strong point, but I guess I was wrong."  
  
Quatre stared somewhere off into the distance, expressionless. "Every . . . everything I once treasured . . ." he muttered, and suddenly shoved at Wu Fei, struggling to get away. A punch landed upon Wu Fei's gut and he rolled away, groaning. He grabbed Quatre's ankle before the boy could dash away and pulled him roughly to the floor, hearing the frightening thunk as Quatre's head connected with solid marble.  
  
Cursing, Wu Fei crawled to the other boy, taking his face in his hands and inspecting his scalp for any bumps or abrasions. When he found none he allowed himself to breathe again.  
  
The same creepily calm atmosphere surrounded Quatre. He still wouldn't look at Wu Fei; instead he blinked as if looking into some other place or time. "It's all so useless."  
  
"Listen to me," said Wu Fei firmly, squashing his fears down. "I said listen!" He forced Quatre to meet his eyes, fingers brushing back strands of blond hair, noses almost touching. He could smell dinner on the other boy's breath. "I'm only going to say this once. Do you remember when you asked me if I thought you were useless? Do you?"  
  
Quatre nodded slowly. "You got me drunk."  
  
"Yes, I did. Because I thought you were being stupid. No one should have to tell you what you are worth, but since you can't seem to figure it out, I guess I have to pound it into your thick Winner skull. If anyone is worthless, it's those idiots out there who never dream of anything beyond themselves. I've been one of those idiots, so I know. But you, Quatre. You contribute to freaking bat charities, as well as human ones, not to mention that you've saved the colonies and, and the earth from total destruction-- twice. I'll bet you don't even walk downtown without giving coins to those street-performers that always hang around for saps like you. Do you know how desolate the world would be without you in it?"  
  
"Oh," said Quatre in a small voice, his gaze completely focused on Wu Fei, who became conscious of the fact that he'd been nearly shouting. "You over- estimate me," the Arabian boy said meekly.  
  
"I have a high opinion of you. Well, I did, anyway."  
  
And with that Wu Fei stood, brushing off his pants and pointedly not looking at the ruined violin.


	6. Chapter Six

**Chapter Six  
**  
1/  
  
"You're going to be put on trial if you confess. You'll be left here until you rot if you don't confess. What will it be?"  
  
Trowa stared at the man standing at the now securely closed entrance to his cell. The man was business-like in his three-piece suit, a self-confident smirk plastered on his round face. He claimed to be a lawyer--had even given Trowa his business card--and he said he could help Trowa get out of this place if he would only cooperate.  
  
Trowa sat in stony silence. He didn't believe this man was here to help him. Probably employed by whoever his captors were--he assumed they worked for the government of whatever colony he was on. Or maybe they were private investigators. He couldn't be sure, and he never really saw them except for when someone of low-rank brought in his modest meals.  
  
His existence was one long day now, unmarked by the passage of moon or sun. Mostly he thought of freedom, and of what he would do with it when he finally got out of here. Usually this included taking a bath (as he hadn't had one in quite a while) and getting a cheeseburger (the food they gave him here wasn't fit for a hamster).  
  
Always he thought of Cathrine, and how much he regretted taking that damned job in the first place. Everyday the questions bombarded him: who were you working for, what was the purpose of the blue prints, how does the laptop work, give us answers we'll give you mercy.  
  
But Trowa had only ever surrendered to two people (Quatre on the battlefield and Cathrine in nearly everything else), and they were exceptions to the rule.  
  
Eventually the lawyer left, having accomplished nothing.  
  
2/  
  
On the day he was to be taken in for more questioning, Trowa strangled a young dreamy-eyed guard who hadn't been paying attention and managed to unlock the cuffs that bound him and to escape his prison before anyone was really aware that anything was the matter. He sincerely hoped that he hadn't outright killed the guard--unconsciousness had been his goal--but didn't stop to mull over the implications.  
  
3/  
  
Days later, Trowa kindly offered an elderly man a glass of water, and asked him to fasten his safety belt because the shuttle would be taking off soon. When the man complied, Trowa absent-mindedly adjusted his steward's uniform and disappeared into the hustle of passengers preparing to set off for L3.  
  
4/  
  
He found out he had been on a small L4 colony, and it only took a few hours for the shuttle to arrive at its destination, in L3. Trowa quickly ducked into a restroom at the terminal and shed his uniform--he'd acquired it from a steward at the L4 air base who hadn't been in need of it once Trowa's fist had slammed into his gut.  
  
Beneath the uniform he was wearing a civilian t-shirt (stolen from an outdoor clothes rack near the L4 air base) and the same jeans he'd been wearing for weeks. They reeked of sweat, but he hadn't had time to hunt for a fresh pair of pants.  
  
As he balled up the uniform and buried it deep within the contents of a garbage can, an overwhelming sense of relief welled up within him, and he had the urge to laugh or cry or simply run out into the open air and bask in his own freedom. It had been many years it seemed since he had been in complete control of where he was going and what he was doing--even space had not been as hellish as his time with first his employers and then his captors.  
  
Gradually his mind cleared, and he began to formulate a plan, even as he feigned washing his hands when a group of men entered the restroom, talking among themselves excitedly.  
  
The air of the terminal was rancid with gas and human sweat, but it was like a breath of heaven to Trowa, who was so accustomed to confinement that even the cramped lobby seemed spacious and bright. He discovered from an overheard conversation that this colony was only used as an air base--it had no inhabitants and only functioned as a switching point, from shuttle to shuttle. The military apparently had its own base on the other side of the colony, but no civilians ever went there.  
  
Trowa thought he knew vaguely how far he was from his colony (as he had come to think of it) and he wandered through the growing crowd, clever hands darting in and out of back pockets and unattended pocket books. When he felt like he had enough cash, he purchased a ticket for the next shuttle out, and was gone before anyone realized they were missing anything. 


	7. Chapter Seven

**Chapter Seven**  
  
1/  
  
Hana leaned back in her chair, a habit that she knew annoyed the hell out of Iria. As expected, her younger sister begged her to sit up straight. Iria had always been the more serious of the two of them. Still, Hana believed that there was such a thing as being too serious, and she ignored Iria's request, instead inspecting the other girl up and down.  
  
Iria seemed thinner--stressed-out, dark circles under her pretty Winner-blue eyes. But a bright smile settled pleasantly on her lips as always. She'd been their father's favorite daughter for a reason.  
  
"How has Quatre been?" she asked right off.  
  
"Eh," said Hana, grimacing. "As well as someone in his position can be."  
  
"Yes," sighed Iria, her smile fading a little. "I thought as much. He's such a gentle boy, and he's been forced to deal with so much."  
  
"Not so gentle," argued Hana under her breath. She'd seen Quatre caught up in fits of adrenaline and lost in helpless rage. People didn't give the boy enough credit.  
  
"This business with the extremist Christians . . . I don't know what to make of it," Iria went on. Her hands were crossed demurely in her lap, but she kept tapping her fingers worriedly. "You know Mother was Catholic--"  
  
"Catherine was not our mother," Hana protested coldly.  
  
Iria ignored this. "--and I keep thinking there must be some connection between that and the current state of affairs. Does the private investigator know about Mother?"  
  
"No," said Hana. "I don't think Catherine's religious practices have anything to do with these threats."  
  
"You never know," said Iria tentatively. "She kept it private for a reason. That old altar in the cellar--is it still there? I remember she used to have a priest over secretly every Sunday morning, before most of us where awake. Used to have mass and she clinked through those rosary beads whenever she had a moment to herself. I was fascinated by that rosary. It was made of the finest, darkest wood, and had a little gold Christ on the end, his holy mother only four or five beads above him--"  
  
"You wax poetic," criticized Hana sharply. "The altar was stripped and destroyed soon after you left. Father couldn't stand having it under his feet, knowing that she'd loved it so well. You know he boarded up her old bedroom and forbade any of us to speak of it."  
  
"So much pain." Iria stared at her knees. She had that peculiar ability to feel other people's grief for them--the same ability, to a lesser degree, than that which Quatre also exhibited. "You should inform the investigator. Of Mother, I mean, and her being Catholic and all. It might help in some way, and . . ." _And Catherine is dead now, anyway, so what does it matter if her secrets are uncovered?  
  
_Hana nodded, unsure whether she really would tell Investigator Jordan or not.  
  
"So Quatre is well taken care of?"  
  
"Oh yeah." Hana grinned, confident in this, at least. "I hired a bodyguard--don't look at me like that. This guy is the real deal, Iria. He was a comrade-in-arms back in 195--a Gundam pilot, like Quatre."  
  
"Are you quite sure he's . . . stable?" Iria plunged ahead despite Hana's doubtful glare. "I mean, none of the Gundam pilots came out of the wars quite right in the head. War never changes, darling." Hana scowled at the use of the pet-name, but Iria didn't notice. "It's forever pulling in innocents and churning out madmen afraid of their own shadows and ready to jump at air. Once a soldier, I'm not sure a return to normalcy is possible."  
  
"Chang Wu Fei is a master of the martial arts, and can shoot a man dead faster than he can blink," said Hana flatly. "He's no more unstable than Quatre is. And all men are a little mad, anyway."  
  
". . . I worry about Quatre all the time. And not just because you think I'm neurotic, Hana. He carries the future on his shoulders." "He's only a boy," Hana argued.  
  
"He's never been 'only a boy'," Iria said sadly.  
  
2/  
  
Quatre sat in the parlor, uncomfortable in his most formal clothes. Even more awkward was the silence that had settled over the manor--servants' chatter no longer buzzed in the hallways; for once, if Hana spoke it was softly; and worst of all, Wu Fei didn't speak at all, in his own circle of silence though never far away.  
  
He was ashamed of his own actions in the ballroom, and Wu Fei's words still stung, but he wasn't sure exactly how to go about apologizing to the Chinese boy. He'd tried to start a conversation once or twice, but had been met with stubborn resistance--Wu Fei was disappointed in him, he knew; hell, he was disappointed in himself. He still wasn't sure exactly what had brought on his fit the other day--stress, frustration, the prospect of having to face Iria. All of it thrown together. It reminded him disturbingly of the Zero System--that feeling of being outside of himself, watching himself lose control and being unable to do anything about it.  
  
He pushed those thoughts away to be picked through later. Now he had to prepare himself to deal with (or be dealt with by) Iria.  
  
Iria was the closest thing to a mother he'd ever had, and he both loved and dreaded her. She was only eleven years his senior, and very pretty in form and figure. Like most Winners (except for perhaps the artsy girls who'd long ago renounced the lifestyle of their more materially bound siblings) Iria wore the traditional full-skirted dresses that most women of aristocratic birth were accustomed to, as well as the latest casual fashions.  
  
Quatre knew only a little of Iria's professional life--she tended elderly patients at a special treatment center on another colony. Sometimes Quatre was even proud of her for being so young and so talented, a respected doctor at only twenty-nine years of age, graduated top of her class, never had a bad thing to say about anyone. But most of the time he was so fed up with her prying into his business and babying him that the pride evaporated in the heat of his anger. He rarely welcomed her well-meaning advice or her fond caresses. Though he himself was often prone to being overly affectionate, somehow Iria grated on his nerves like no one else. Only when he'd been a very small boy and when he'd returned to his home colony at fifteen for the first time since he'd run away from it had he felt absolute love for her, untainted by repulsion.  
  
Worst of all, a great deal of the time he couldn't read her like he could read other people--she was like an emotional dead zone to him.  
  
"Good evening, Quatre."  
  
Quatre leapt to his feet, startled. The object of his thoughts stood at the parlor entrance, her slim figure clad in stiff, formal garb. The long, frilled skirt was scarlet, the top low-cut and made of lace and soft vanilla-colored fabric--it brought out the blush in her cheeks, and dulled her usually startling blue eyes. She entered the room unpretentiously, taking a seat across from Quatre, who bowed and then also sat down. His hands clenched into fists unconsciously.  
  
"Comment allez-vous, mon petit frère?" She smiled, her French faultless.  
  
"Uh, ça va bien . . . merci." He struggled a little for the words, caught off guard, though his French was usually pretty decent. "Et vous?"  
  
"Wonderful! You're coming along quite nicely, brother."  
  
"Thank you."  
  
"Keep this up and you'll be able to progress to German or Chinese--in a year or so, of course." She fanned herself with one well-manicured hand, gaze shifting to a window that had carelessly been left agape by one of the servants. "Oh, don't you know any better than to leave this open? The humidity will ruin our clothes."  
  
Biting back a sharp reply, Quatre rose and closed the offending window, pausing to collect himself. He wanted to make a good impression on his sister; her approval meant worlds to him, and he also secretly hoped that she would leave sooner if she saw that he was getting on well without her.  
  
"Have you found a university that appeals to you?"  
  
He avoided her eyes, though they were polite and not at all accusing. "Not yet."  
  
If she had been anyone else, she would have thrown up her hands in despair. Every time they met she asked him the same question, and every time he deterred her with short, curt answers that weren't really answers at all. But since she was Iria Winner, she just nodded and calmly inquired what exactly he was looking for in a university. If he wanted she was sure that Alexandria would accept him without even a placement exam; traditionally the eldest Winner son attended there with other wealthy students his own age.  
  
"Iria, I just . . . I just don't want to go there," he interrupted, unable to put into words what he was feeling.  
  
"Ah," she said, knowingly. "Because Father--"  
  
"It has nothing to do with Father! I don't want to go to some school where they only look at my lineage to determine my worth." His words fell like iron in the room.  
  
"Then what is it you want to do, Quatre?" Iria's voice was more heated now. She didn't think he had a set plan for the future, and he realized she was right. The old feeling of uselessness descended over him, dark and endless. What could he do? Was there really anything that he loved--painting, music, computer sciences, none of it was something he'd be allowed to make a career of. After all, he was being molded to take over the Winner family legacy someday.  
  
"Give me time," he said.  
  
3/  
  
The unnatural silence was even more profound at night. Quatre lay tense and restless in his bed, staring at the ceiling, watching the shadows drift past each other slowly as the moon moved out from behind a cloud outside. For hours he thought of nothing, waiting for something to happen.  
  
The soft pad of feet upon a wooden floor brought a smile to his face. The faint whoosh of air as a fist struck out--rough slide of one foot past its twin--a breathless shout, wordless by necessity, which when used loudly in a real fight was meant to take an opponent off guard. Quatre imagined most of this, knowing how Wu Fei's forms looked and sounded and felt from hours spent watching him execute them in perfect order.  
  
The sudden longing for his Chinese friend nearly brought him to tears, but he doggedly resisted, unwilling to succumb to emotion. He couldn't risk Wu Fei hearing and thinking him even more unworthy. More than anything he wanted to creep across the seemingly endless miles of carpet and push open the door dividing Wu Fei's little chamber from his. He wanted to say all the right words, do all the right things, make Wu Fei think well of him once more. And then Wu Fei would, as always, produce some golden-red or sparkling white liquid from his extensive collection of intoxicants, and they'd both get dead drunk, and regret it like hell in the morning.  
  
Before Quatre could do any of this he had to actually get up the nerve. Which wasn't easy, because Wu Fei could be quite intimidating. He was like thunder: startlingly vivid, sound and sensation, bigger than he really was.  
  
Quatre was just pushing back his covers decisively when out of the darkness came a crash, glass and metal screaming and shattering. Quatre stumbled away from his bed, landing awkwardly on one ankle and colliding painfully with his bedside table, in the process knocking his alarm clock and lamp to the floor. The light bulb in the lamp burst, illuminating the room for a fraction of a second. Frantically Quatre tried to both rise to his feet and find something that even vaguely resembled a weapon. It was then that the ceiling light flickered on--Quatre was temporarily blinded, but he knew that Wu Fei was rushing into the room, gun jutting out from his large brown hands.  
  
When the world came back into focus Quatre finally became aware of the full extent of the damage. Besides the upturned table and busted lamp, every window in the room had been shattered, broken glass glinting in the artificial light. Wu Fei (who was barefoot amid the glass, Quatre was dismayed to see) motioned for Quatre to get down, meanwhile flattening himself against the wall. His sharp eyes examined the jagged edges of the windows and the midnight-dark yard outside.  
  
"Damn it," he muttered. "Should've left the lights off, might've got the bastards--" He stopped, and Quatre cautiously peered around one bed post.  
  
It looked like a necklace tied around a large rock. Now that Quatre was looking, he noticed other, smaller rocks scattered about the room. Apparently these were what had destroyed the windows. But the rock that had caught Wu Fei's eye was darker than the others, and the necklace was--well, it looked familiar somehow. He started to edge forward, but a gesture from his bodyguard stilled him.  
  
"What is it?" Quatre asked softly.  
  
Wu Fei started to answer, but before the words got past his lips the door into the hallway swung open, and what seemed to be a whole troop of uniformed officers filed in rapidly, armed and ready for anything. At their head stood a man of nearly forty years, shabbily dressed in a brown trench coat, a floppy cap perched atop a mess of wiry black curls. His simple yet slightly eccentric garb marked him as an outsider--born on earth, or perhaps on a small out of the way colony. He directed his men to surround the room and the area around it (a few of the eager followers ran out and reappeared some time later twenty-seven feet below the windows, waving to their comrades and then splitting up to investigate). Once they'd begun their investigation, the strange man turned and bowed respectfully to Quatre, his brown eyes glinting.  
  
"Mr. Winner, I'm Private Investigator Harold Jordan from the United Kingdom." His English was strongly accented, and Quatre had a little difficulty understanding it. "Half an hour ago we received a message--a Bible verse, like every other message in connection with this case--that seemed to indicate your well-being would be in immediate danger. We rushed here as quickly as possible. Are you hurt anywhere?"  
  
"No, I-I'm fine, my bodyguard, he--case? You're the investigator my sister has been talking about?"  
  
"In all likelihood, yes."  
  
Quatre tried politely to hide his disbelief. This man looked as if he would be more at home at a seedy bar or working with a construction company along the roadways. Certainly not like a professional investigator.  
  
"I see you are alarmed by my appearance," Jordan observed. His sharp features twisted into a smile--there was a tiny scar that split his upper lip, white on his dark flesh. "I won't take offense, I swear. Now, how long ago was the attack, and exactly what--"  
  
"I'm sorry," Wu Fei smoothly intervened, stepping between the investigator and Quatre. His posture was unusually stiff, even for him. "Mr. Winner cannot answer your inquiries at this time."  
  
"Oh, I assure you he can and will," said the investigator, his smile fading into a rather menacing scowl. "I've been authorized--"  
  
"And I couldn't care less," interrupted Wu Fei, throwing courtesy to the wind. He took Quatre by the elbow and began to maneuver him out of the now stifling bedroom, leaving behind a furious investigator and his crew.  
  
The two boys made their way down three flights of stairs to the first floor, Quatre's heart racing all the while. The way he felt about Wu Fei seemed almost trivial in the light of what had just occurred, but he couldn't control his fevered thoughts, nor the pleasure of physical contact--Wu Fei was still grasping his arm, though his eyes were fixed firmly ahead.  
  
"It was a rosary," he said quietly as they were descending the first floor staircase. The sound of people up and about filtered to them from downstairs--the whole manor was alive with fright.  
  
Quatre blinked, confused. "A rosary?"  
  
Wu Fei came to a sudden halt about halfway down the staircase. They could see neither end of the house--only dark stairs. "Near my family's home on L5 there was a church. Missionaries saw to its upkeep. They also frequently attempted to sway us from our spiritual customs--they succeeded with one of my elder brothers, who became Catholic and gave up his birthright. He told me all about his god, and his god's human mother. There is a--a sort of ritual prayer that is said over a set of beads. It's called the rosary. That's what was wound about that rock in your room."  
  
When Quatre didn't say anything, he went on. "It's a clue. That person--or perhaps I should say people--that are after you must be members of the Catholic Church. But the Church itself may not have anything to do with it . . ." He frowned. "There's just no way to be sure yet."  
  
Footsteps were fast approaching. Hastily Wu Fei resumed directing Quatre down the stairs.  
  
4/  
  
Iria and Hana Winner flanked Quatre on either side. Behind them stood Wu Fei, who was dressed as modestly as possible, a gun in a holster around his chest. The two sisters spoke in soft, fearful tones, unintentionally ignoring their stoic younger brother. Wu Fei pretended not to listen, staring into the distance, looking for some invisible enemy.  
  
"What can we do about the ball?" Iria was asking. Her usually sleek blonde hair was sleep-tossed and apparently hadn't seen a brush since the day before. "It's three nights from now, but with the attack--"  
  
"It wasn't an attack," Hana protested. "It was another threat. The investigator advises we transfer Quatre to a room far from his current one. He doesn't think a change of location is necessary at this point."  
  
"Naturally," agreed Iria. "But the ball, darling--!"  
  
"We can't cancel, the invitations have been sent, and it is going to be his birthday . . ."  
  
Here they both looked down at Quatre, who seemed to be apathetically counting the floor tiles.  
  
"I suppose, if we post guards at every entrance and plan an escape route in case something dreadful should happen . . . I suppose it would be all right." Iria sighed.  
  
"Imagine seeing the twins again--oh, they'll be furious that all this has been going on without them. And Mona will positively have a fit, she's terrified of anything remotely violent, she simply hated that Quatre went off to war without so much as a by your leave from Father--"  
  
"Pa-ci-fist," Iria teased in a sing-song voice.  
  
"Aren't we meant to be?"  
  
"May I be excused?" Quatre asked suddenly. He didn't wait for their answer, just stood and left the room.  
  
"But Quat--"  
  
"No, let him," said Iria.  
  
Silently, Wu Fei followed.  
  
Quatre avoided the occupied rooms, surpassing them for the stillness of the upper floors. His own room was under constant surveillance, and he had been moved to the second floor, near to where his sister Hana slept. He passed the guards, who ignored him. At the end of the hall he made a right, entering a tiny wooden cubicle; hanging from the ceiling was a long thin cord, and he yanked on it. A square door popped out, and a ladder unfolded awkwardly. It was rickety and had not been used in quite a while--for a long time his room had been his sanctuary.  
  
He scrambled up the ladder and into the dusky attic. A single window overlooked the northern section of the estate and allowed in pallid daylight. The Winner attic was habitually messy, boxes and boxes piled atop one another. Quatre knew that some of these cartons contained souvenirs from the many locations his father had traveled to on business trips, as well as his and his sisters' old toys and clothes. In the midst of this chaos a space had been cleared long ago, now covered only in dust. Here Quatre sat, his back to a large box, head bowed.  
  
5/  
  
Quatre didn't look up when Wu Fei appeared over the rim of the opening in the floor, his black eyes cautious and searching. He hauled himself over the edge, staring around at the wall to wall boxes and dust rising in the air like a wordless cry. Shaking off sentimentality, he gratefully sat next to Quatre, sighing in relief.  
  
"You know, that investigator's been on my ass all day."  
  
"Yeah?" Quatre didn't sound very interested.  
  
"Claims I'm not qualified for my position. Bullshit. If I know how to kill a man, I certainly know how to protect one."  
  
"Mm."  
  
"You never mentioned your birthday was in three days."  
  
"It's not." Quatre refused to meet Wu Fei's eyes, instead gazing at the opposite wall, the dark wood familiar and comforting somehow. "I don't really have a birthday because I wasn't born. I'm a . . . a test-tube baby. My family's always had difficulties bearing children,"he went on in a rush. "Ever since we came to space...anyway. My sisters made up a birth date for me. I assume it's the day my body was complete."  
  
"I . . . understand." Wu Fei rested his head upon his hand, eyeing Quatre broodingly. "I'm sorry for what I said the other day. About not having a high opinion of you."  
  
"You merely spoke the truth," said Quatre dismissively, though his face showed how hurt he'd been.  
  
"No, I was upset. You caught me by surprise, and I...Quatre, I--"  
  
". . . You really . . . think highly of me?" Quatre looked up hesitantly.  
  
"You . . . look at you, Winner, you're--" Wu Fei swallowed. "--very good company. Not quite so clueless as all the other fools I've had to deal with over the years. And you're . . ." He'd been about to say "gorgeous" but snapped his mouth shut, cheeks ablaze with shame. He wasn't sure what had come over him lately.  
  
But Quatre's mood was very much lighter, his sea-blue eyes no longer overshadowed by a lowered brow. The sunlight caught in his hair, and for a moment he reminded Wu Fei of one of the beautiful, Anglo-Saxon angels forever trapped within a stained glass window in the church on L5. He'd snuck in many times to look at that angel when he was much younger, but when his grandfather caught him at it he was given a severe beating and warned never to do such a thing again. He was overflowing with that sense of guilty adoration now, desperately trying to hide it because he couldn't bear the thought of Quatre knowing.  
  
"Wu Fei, are you all right?"  
  
Wu Fei nodded so hard his head knocked against his knee, and he cradled his forehead in pain, so embarrassed he couldn't speak. When he tried to rise to his feet, he tripped and fell nearly in his companion's lap, face tomato-red and eyes wide. "Oh, oh shit, I'm sorry--"  
  
"It's fine, Wu Fei." Quatre laughed despite himself. "We're not even drunk this time."  
  
"When I'm with you I feel like I am."  
  
A heavy silence fell between the two boys, and Wu Fei could have killed himself. Oh gods, why couldn't he control his damned mouth? He had to move away from Quatre, who wasn't saying anything, wasn't agreeing or disagreeing, only watching Wu Fei and looking so young.  
  
Unnerved and humiliated, the Chinese boy uttered a jerky apology and made a clumsy effort to stand, only to be pulled down into an uncomfortable position, head and shoulders balanced on Quatre's crossed legs, his own limbs spread out like four long tentacles.  
  
Quatre's blond hair fell around Wu Fei, obscuring his vision, but all he wanted to see was the boy with him now, whose hot clever hands were resting upon Wu Fei's chest, and whose lips were suddenly a whisper away.  
  
The kiss landed on the side of Wu Fei's mouth, dry and chaste. His blood pounded in his ears, a ragged drumbeat. Then Quatre's lips were on his own, softer than he'd thought they would be and he'd never even allowed himself to dream of this. He'd gladly hand over his life for this boy--all of his life, because without Quatre life suddenly lost its worth. When had the little heir of the Winner family become such an integral part of him?  
  
Wu Fei's eyes were slits, watching the blur that was Quatre, loving every part of him and for the moment not worrying whether the feeling was returned or not. Inexperience was written in every movement of his body, and Wu Fei couldn't help but be satisfied by that--no one had ever been so close to Quatre as he was now.  
  
Hard brown hands cupped Quatre's face, forced him down further until their mouths were welded together. Wu Fei's lips parted, his tongue experimentally edging along the fold of Quatre's lips, tasting milk from breakfast and some sort of fruit and the unique flavor of Quatre himself. The blond boy sighed shakily, his arms convulsively wrapping round Wu Fei, breath coming in short little gasps as much from excitement as from his uncomfortable position, bent over almost double.  
  
Never in his life had Wu Fei been so full of emotion--in any other circumstance he would have berated himself as a weakling, but here all things seemed right. Quatre's tongue hesitantly met his, slick and alien, probing within the hot recesses of Wu Fei's mouth. It was a universe away from the one cool kiss Wu Fei had shared with his wife, Nataku. His bones hadn't quaked with longing then. Longing which moved like lightning down his back and between his legs, infiltrating every part of him.  
  
"Oh," said Quatre, pulling away, flushed and panting.  
  
"Don't--" Wu Fei twisted around, hands sliding up Quatre's thighs and coming to rest on his hips. He locked gazes with the other boy, intensity flaring up between them like fire. "Don't doubt the sincerity of my actions."  
  
"I--I won't. Wu Fei, why--"  
  
Wu Fei silenced him, placed a brotherly kiss upon Quatre's brow, willing his own body to calm down. "It doesn't matter. Let's go downstairs before someone comes looking for you."  
  
6/  
  
Though there was plenty to keep Wu Fei occupied, his thoughts invariably strayed to Quatre, and how good kissing Quatre had been, and how much he would like to do it again. At odd moments he would pause and press his fingers to his lips, wondering if it was simply a fantasy he'd given in to--how could Quatre allow advances from someone like him? He was going mad with desire and curiosity, walking on eggshells for fear of anyone discovering what he was thinking.  
  
They did not speak much at all through the day, but occasionally one of them would glance at the other and smile slightly, or their hands would brush together and both boys would shudder pleasantly. This was only marred by the fact that every hour seemed to bring with it another estranged Winner sister. They were of course all invited to Quatre's "birthday" ball, and most took it upon themselves to arrive a day early. Wu Fei had to endure adoring, rambunctious girls handling Quatre as if he were a small but endearing animal, ruffling the boy's hair into a frizzy mess and kissing his cheeks affectionately. Quatre received all this graciously, though he did protest when one of the younger, more eccentric sisters insisted he try on a ridiculous costume she'd made for him. It was a rabbit suit, complete with bunny ears and tie-on tail.  
  
"O-oh my," Quatre stammered, backing away.  
  
"Cuuute!" the sister squealed, and had to be led away by level-headed Hana, who was behaving a bit like a hostess and a bit like a guard.  
  
Wu Fei chuckled and Quatre gave him a dark look.  
  
Worst of all, Private Investigator Jordan seemed to be always nearby, watching Quatre (and, by association, Wu Fei) with his unfriendly eyes. The man was kept busy with the investigation and often reported his findings to Iria, who hadn't slept at all since the incident in Quatre's bedroom the day before. Beneath the cheerful festivities lay a tense expectation--the investigator's men stood at every doorway, backs straight and minds alert.  
  
Wu Fei didn't know what to believe. Whoever was after Quatre had proven himself adept at terrorist tactics--and surely there must have been a spy within the manor itself. How else could anyone have successfully infiltrated such a well-guarded house? Wu Fei wore his gun at all times, staring at a group of servants so severely that they scuttled away in fear.  
  
At last Quatre informed a servant that he was retiring for the night, and he didn't wish to be disturbed under any circumstances. He said this confidently but not unkindly, in the tones of a boy born to privilege, and Wu Fei secretly admired his conviction.  
  
The stairways and corridors were no longer dark--Iria had ordered that the entire manor be well-lit, and now the windows shone like miniature suns in the night outside.  
  
A hard nervous knot formed in Wu Fei's gut. Quatre was pressed close to him as they walked. Every contraction of every muscle, the soapy boyish scent of him, the heat from his thigh and his arm brushing innocently against Wu Fei's--all of this only further provoked Wu Fei, who was fairly trembling by the time the two entered Quatre's twilight-dim room.  
  
The last rays of light made bars upon the unfamiliar floor, its thick carpet soft and deep blue. The bed was made so well, the curtains pulled so close together, the atmosphere so cool that it was clear the room was rarely used. Someone had hauled in a cot and placed it against a wall far from the large bed, and Wu Fei stood anxiously by the door even after Quatre approached his own bed, unsure of what his next move should be. What did normal people do in this sort of situation? Admit mutual (hopefully) desire and get to it? And to what, exactly? Of course he knew all about sex--on L5 his grandfather had instructed him in the many artful ways to have sons, though he'd never put any techniques into practice with Nataku and, indeed, probably would not have had he had the chance. But Quatre was . . . not female. And not Nataku by a long shot. Wu Fei knew he wanted to do something with the other boy. He just didn't know what that something was.  
  
"Wu Fei?" A stream of dying light crossed Quatre's face, illuminating first his lips and then his nose and just his eyes. They were unguarded and hesitant at the same time. So Quatre didn't know what to do either.  
  
Wu Fei tried to laugh but the sound went flat. "They, uh, made me a place to sleep--right over here, see, it...um."  
  
"Yes. I can . . . see that." Quatre stared at his feet.  
  
"I, uh--"  
  
"We have a long day ahead of us, so we should get to sleep soon."  
  
" . . . Yeah." Deflated, Wu Fei turned too quickly, intent on disappearing beneath the thin sheets of the cot and never thinking of the damned obviously one-time-only kiss.  
  
"And, you know, with all that's been happening . . ." Quatre paused, and hope grew again within Wu Fei. "Maybe you could move your bed over here near mine, and in case something happens--something bad--you can protect me."  
  
In the dark, Wu Fei's heart resumed its irregular pounding, and with each beat he felt more and more that he was losing control. The world spun. Wu Fei found himself nodding and pushing the cot across the soft carpet, the quiet swish of its wheels the only sound. He pretended to be absorbed with the way the two mattresses, one enormous and one flatter than the sky, fit together. White sheets against blue. Quatre was shyly and discreetly shedding his clothing.  
  
Buttons undone, one shoulder bare and strangely tempting, turning away from Wu Fei as the room filled with the cold sound of his zipper being pulled down.  
  
This was a thousand times more thrilling than it should have been, for Quatre had never undressed in Wu Fei's presence--always a bathroom or closet door had separated them from one another's view. Now Wu Fei was seeing Quatre almost entirely disrobed. It was like having been shown a photograph for years and years and then one day discovering that it was only part of a larger picture, that there were details there you had never been aware of, though you thought you knew the photo inside and out.  
  
What first struck Wu Fei was that Quatre had knobby knees. If he had ever taken the time to imagine what Quatre's knees looked like, he would not have imagined them so childishly large and awkward. He grinned. The slender calves were turned nicely, with just a hint of muscle. Boyishly square hips, clad now in plain white boxer shorts, and over that his now open shirt, concealing the upper half of his body. Quatre looked over his shoulder, a sheepish smile stealing across his face, and Wu Fei thought that no one had ever been so beautiful.  
  
"There's only one pair of pajamas," Quatre said suddenly. A pile of white material spilled over the edge of the nearby dresser, and he carefully unfolded a large shirt and drawstring trousers. "I suppose I'll wear the top bit, and you can wear the bottoms--that way we'll both be comfortable."  
  
Wu Fei deftly caught the pants thrown his way, and then couldn't bring himself to change into them. Quatre, sensing his uncertainty, coughed and pointedly turned away. The two finished dressing in silence. Though Wu Fei didn't have the heart to tell him, Quatre looked like a wayward schoolboy in the long nightshirt, his face flushed and blond hair awry.  
  
They stood in silence, both waiting for some sign, and when none came they felt all the worse for it. Finally Quatre wheeled around, back straight and tense, and strode for his own bed purposefully. He ducked under the covers and disappeared from view. Sighing noiselessly, Wu Fei approached his cot on tip-toe, unsure what had caused his own sudden reticence. After taking out the band that held his hair in place, he crawled between the cool sheets, listening to Quatre's breathing.  
  
Quatre was only a foot away, but a wave of loneliness overtook Wu Fei. He quickly repressed it, shuddering. What a mess he'd gotten himself into.  
  
Then something warm settled over his wrist, and he realized it was Quatre's hand, twining around his. Looking up, he saw worried blue eyes that were nevertheless affectionate, and his heart went into his throat.  
  
"Your hair--" Thin white fingers brushed past his ear. "--I've so rarely seen it down, Wu Fei."  
  
Wu Fei ducked his head. He'd forgotten that now they were sleeping so close, Quatre would of course notice him without his customary pony-tail. His hair fell smoothly around his face, like black water.  
  
"May I . . . ?" Without waiting for an answer, Quatre sat up, at the same time pulling Wu Fei up after him. On his knees and a head taller, Quatre ran his fingers through the silky black locks, trailing across the sensitive scalp, mussing and fixing and sending shivers down Wu Fei's spine. Another first: he'd never let anyone touch his hair before except his mother when he'd been a child. It was strangely pleasurable--even erotic in a crazy way. The front of Quatre's shirt kept brushing up against his nose, the curve of his neck so close Wu Fei was sure he could lick it if he tried.  
  
Quatre rested his chin upon Wu Fei's shoulder, his hands stilling. "I want to kiss you again."  
  
"I know," Wu Fei heard himself say, and they both moved at the same time, their foreheads and noses getting in the way but finally, finally, their mouths met in a wet hot mash of tongues and lips and swallowed words. All sense flew from Wu Fei--he couldn't remember who he was, or what he was doing here, only that Quatre was warm and real in his arms. For so long he had desired this, wondering all the while why exactly he wanted this boy so much--wordlessly this need had overtaken him, without warning. The days piling up, hours spent not so much keeping Quatre alive as watching him live--all of it came together in this instant. The whole picture was laid out before him, and he decided that it really wasn't a bad picture at all.  
  
Soft fabric against his bare chest--skinny legs locked around his waist--pale eyelashes brushing feather light against his cheeks as Quatre's eyes closed. 


	8. Chapter Eight

**Chapter Eight**  
  
1/  
  
The trailer was where Trowa had last seen it, and that surprised him. He'd expected to find Cathrine gone to wherever the circus had taken her; all during the trip here he'd composed in his head what he would ask the people who might possibly have known her, and thereby discover exactly where the circus had traveled to.  
  
It didn't make sense. The door was locked, and no matter how he knocked no answer was forthcoming. Half the day he waited, watching for Cathrine and growing steadily more despondent as the hours passed and the sun descended from its throne. He went in search of a rock, hoping to break a window--she couldn't be angry with him later, because he had waited for a ridiculously long time and it was now growing dark.  
  
The ground was dry and dusty and the only rocks he could find were pebbles. Finally he took off one of his boots and swung it as a window as hard as he could. The glass cracked. He swung again and succeeded in breaking out most of the glass, carefully sweeping away the rest of it with the heel of his boot.  
  
Satisfied, Trowa lithely flipped himself up and in through the window, landing unsteadily upon the edge of the kitchen sink. From there he leapt to the tiled floor, glancing around suspiciously as he did so. It was for all appearances perfectly normal. Pans scattered everywhere, a stick of butter carelessly left out to melt into a goopy mess. Ants swarmed over the yellow puddle, and Trowa looked away, disgusted.  
  
The living room was neater; only a few of the couch cushions were lying on the floor or in chairs. Trowa bypassed the lightless room, heading for Cathrine's bedchamber at the end of a short hallway.  
  
It was little more than a glorified closet. A bed was tucked in the corner, one edge of the comforter pulled down as Cathrine liked it. A home-made target was fastened on the opposite wall, just over a simple wooden wardrobe where Cathrine kept her casual clothes. Her circus costumes were in plastic bags alongside these.  
  
Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to suggest that anything was the matter, besides the gnawing fact that Cathrine simply was not there. He left her room and walked the empty hallway, possibilities winging tauntingly around his head--all the places she could have been, all the things she could have been doing, all the reasons she might have had.  
  
Trowa trudged into the kitchen. The sickly sweet scent of rotting food slammed into him like a brick wall--he hadn't noticed before. The generator must have given out some time ago. No water, no food, no Cathrine. He propped open the front door and raised the windows, hoping to alleviate the horrible smell and the now stifling heat.  
  
As he was doing this, out of the corner of his eye he saw something glinting in the sunlight--something fastened to the handle of a closed cabinet door, something he immediately recognized as a tiny video recorder. He was being watched.  
  
Furiously he tore open every cabinet in the room, pulled out drawers, kicked open the refrigerator--here, there, small black eyes watching his every move. Into the living room he ran, seeing the devices everywhere and despising them, dying of worry for Cathrine.  
  
"Mr. Barton?"  
  
He looked up to find the elderly woman who owned the grocery store down the street standing at the doorway. She took a step back, suddenly fearful. He was a terror--the one eye visible past his mop of brown hair blazed like a green star, though his expression was otherwise cool; it was an odd combination of passion and composure.  
  
"What," he said curtly.  
  
"You--you have a call waiting for you back at the store."  
  
A chill went through Trowa. The last time he'd received a phone call, he'd been thrust into a deadly scheme which he still didn't completely understand. But his choices were practically nonexistent. He nodded to the woman and followed her out of the trailer.  
  
2/  
  
Cathrine didn't think she was very brave. Most of her life, defiance had burned within her breast; she'd been proud. But now fear smothered most of her resistance like cold water.  
  
For days--how many she had no idea--she had been here in this old church, its walls gray and cold. Her clothes had been taken away her first day here--her body bathed and hair washed--and she wore a simple black dress, suitable for a young schoolgirl. She was almost sure that it was indeed a uniform, because sometimes during the day she could hear childish laughter from somewhere in the church. Maybe a school for little Catholic kids. It was definitely a Catholic church, complete with incense and candles and beautiful statues. She could see all this on the route from her little cell to the tiny room where everyday a young priest would come to see her and reassure her that she was in very good hands and could freely confess her sins. On these trips she never failed to notice the suited men standing in the shadows. So she never confessed to the priest--never cried out that this just wasn't right, that she was a good woman and shouldn't be treated this way, watched and sealed away like a criminal, far from home. Never mentioned Trowa's name except in a whispered prayer each night and each morning to a god she was beginning to doubt.  
  
_I'm a terrible sister,_ she often thought despairingly. _I betrayed Trowa once--made him accept that job--sent him into space--lost him. I know he's out there somewhere. They're looking for him.  
_  
She would die before she let a word concerning Trowa escape her lips in the presence of the dark men or the kindly priest. Absolutely die. She wanted to die--no longer certain of the promise of heaven or hell, she only desired death or freedom, whichever came first.  
  
She entertained thoughts of screaming out the truth to all those good-natured people who passed in and out of the church, from the dreary, lovely world into this place, stuck in time because people believed it should be. Their escape. Cathrine wanted to break their illusions. Where was God? Why was he letting this happen to her? Had she brought it on herself by hiding her true intentions from Trowa? Was she living in sin--was her love for Trowa too strong, when he only thought of her as a protective elder sister? Where was God, where was God, oh, where was God?  
  
3/  
  
Heero Yuy could have jumped out of his skin when he heard the telephone ringing, but he wasn't that sort of person. Instead he grunted and stared at the yellow plastic covering of the phone. No one ever called him except for sometimes Duo Maxwell, who didn't know any better (or so Heero told himself, unwilling to consider that Duo probably did know better but liked to talk with--or rather at--Heero anyway).  
  
Finally he picked up the receiver and said, "Third time this week, Duo. You must be feeling lucky."  
  
"Not so much," replied a dead-pan voice. "I hope you aren't busy. It took me a very long time to find your number."  
  
". . . Trowa Barton?" All the muscles in Heero's body went taut. He hadn't heard that voice in two years.  
  
"Yeah, it's me."  
  
"What the hell?"  
  
"I need your help." Trowa wove a complicated story that could have come straight out of a fairy tale despite its matter-of-fact explanation. He finished by telling how his employers contacted him on his home colony and ordered him to report to a base near L1 if he wanted to claim his sister.  
  
_Cathrine. The circus girl_, Heero thought. He remembered her only vaguely as an eccentrically dressed person who hadn't liked him much, though Trowa had seemed quite taken with her.  
  
He stared at his small apartment. Its walls were covered in posters Duo had sent him in the mail (mostly rock bands in beads and leather, and the occasional sports car--Duo also sent centerfolds of scantily clad women but Heero couldn't bring himself to display them). Rain splattered against the windows--even on the cusp of summer, L1 was chilly in wet weather, and Heero wore an old sweatshirt and a ratty pair of jeans one size too small. This wasn't his home. At least, he didn't think of it as one. Sometimes he wondered what a home eally was--always he'd traveled from colony to colony, wherever his missions took him. Impersonal hotel rooms and dormitories. Sometimes he thought of a verdant country on the edge of civilization, ruled by a gentle Queen and populated by idealistic men and women who worshipped the ground she stood upon. But this was a fantasy. The closest thing to a home he'd ever had was Wing's tiny cockpit, and even that had been destroyed.  
  
"Heero, are you there?"  
  
"Yeah." He turned his back on the room, instead watching the raindrops trickle down the glass.  
  
"You still have your laptop, right?"  
  
"Of course." It was on his desk, closed because he hadn't needed it for anything besides essays and e-mail for a long time. Too long. College had spoiled him, but he couldn't tolerate the military, not after all he'd been through. And what else was open to a burnt-out warrior like him, unwilling to kill and unable to do anything else?  
  
"Write this down, okay?" Heero fetched a sheet of paper and a pen and wrote down so much information his hands began to cramp up. Men in suits and reeking of religion, a secret organization with hidden records, and blueprints, pictures, a huge beautiful house.  
  
"They must have left traces somewhere. Here's the number they told me to call months ago--" Trowa recited it. "--and the address they told me to meet them at." He rattled it off flawlessly. Heero suspected he'd memorized everything he knew about Cathrine's abductors, which really wasn't much. "No one knows underground organizations like you do, Heero."  
  
"Hm."  
  
And then Trowa hung up.  
  
Heero dropped the receiver, his mind whirling. Then he strode across his room and sat before his computer, almost smiling as the familiar blue screen flashed on.  
  
4/  
  
Trowa glanced around cautiously, making sure no one saw him exit the back of the convenience store. He'd used the pay phone out front, figuring that it would be infinitely harder for a call to be traced. He wasn't even on his colony--this was a large colony, all steel canyons and concrete streets, far from where his ex-employers might expect to find him.  
  
He wandered down alleyways, biding his time until Heero had had a chance to do any of his research. Trowa would call him again from some other phone, some other colony.  
  
Until then, he could only wait.  
  
5/  
  
It was five o'clock in the afternoon, and the streets of Sei-Matsuyu (rightfully the city was christened "St. Matthew", but most of the inhabitants were the descendants of Japanese colonists) were bulging with children in ecstasies to be out of school for the day. Adults in cars and buses and on foot rushed home, all enjoying their last few hours of daylight. After nightfall they would be locked in their apartments and houses and trailers, curtains pulled against any spying eyes. The curfew on this colony was strictly enforced, and no other city was as well-policed as Sei-Matsuyu, the capital. After nine-thirty p.m., the streets would be deserted, the alleyways cemetery-silent.  
  
Trowa closed his own curtains. His room was cheap--there hadn't been much money to take with him when he'd left the trailer--and stuffy, but it was safer than chancing being found outside after curfew. That was all he needed: a run-in with the police.  
  
Steam still drifted out of the bathroom from his recent shower, filling the room with the smell of wet hotel soap. Clean clothes, edible food, a ceiling fan that at least kept the damp air in motion if it didn't actually cool the room--he was pretty well-off here. But he didn't dare use the hotel phone to contact Heero. Though he'd used an assumed name, he couldn't be sure that the phone-lines in Sei-Matsuyu weren't being tapped, what with the high level of security. This was, after all, where Cathrine's captors had told him to meet them.  
  
He'd last spoken to Heero late last night, from a house he'd broken into on a colony he'd never been to before.  
  
"There isn't a great deal of information about them," Heero had said almost ruefully. "Catholic organization--they've been reprimanded by the Vatican at least once for questionable practices, though no one seems to know exactly what those practices were. No specific leader, but I did find the name of a prominent priest. Father Michael Bailey. Originally from the United States of America on earth, but he used to do missionary work all over the Western Hemisphere and the colonies under its jurisdiction. He wrote quite a few papers on the evils of 'religion reversed', as he called it--Latin American pagan groups and Middle Eastern Jews and Muslims, from what I can tell." There had been the sound of computer keys clacking, and then Heero went on. "There were only three or four blueprints I found that had any connection with the group--they call themselves 'Les Frères,' by the way."  
  
"The Brothers," Trowa had murmured.  
  
"Do you want me to fax you the blueprints? I don't think they're the ones you were given."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
Heero snorted. "Unless you mean to tell me that you were helping a group of religious fanatics infiltrate the house of Quatre Raberba Winner, I doubt you'll recognize these blueprints."  
  
Silence had fallen between them, and then Trowa had said, "Quatre?"  
  
"I remember doing background checks on all of you years ago. The blueprints are definitely from somewhere on L4, and definitely Winner property. The headquarters of his business and his private residence are pictured."  
  
_He wrote quite a few papers on the evils of religion reversed, as he called it--Latin American pagan groups and Middle Eastern Jews and Muslims.  
_  
"'Religion reversed'," Trowa had whispered, going pale.  
  
"What?"  
  
"I--I've got to go." And he'd hung up, horror freezing his heart within his chest.  
  
Now here he was, still torn between somehow warning Quatre and going right out there and saving Cathrine--both of which were difficult tasks. He had no way of contacting L4 anytime soon, and he wasn't entirely certain that he could get Cathrine back without resorting to violence of some sort. Not that he would balk from violence if it came to that--he had hidden knives up his sleeves and in his boots, though he hadn't been able to secure a gun on such short notice.  
  
_They were after Quatre all along_, he thought bitterly, sitting on the edge of his thin mattress and willing the hours to pass more quickly. _He's Muslim aristocracy in L4; a prime target. Why didn't I see this coming?_


	9. Chapter Nine

**Notes: Just to illustrate how air-headed I really am, I completely forgot that I hadn't posted all of this at sweatdrop Forgive me?**

**Chapter Nine**

1/

The little maid rushed into the kitchen and breathlessly informed anyone who cared to listen that her sister, who dusted the fourth floor every day except for Monday, swore up and down that Mr. Chang and Master Winner had confessed their love--and so romantically!--and even (she giggled) consummated it the night before.

"Oh my Lord," breathed the head cook, nearly fainting. The dish boy fanned her worriedly, a blush staining his young face.

"How does she know, eh?" Another maid asked doubtfully. "Was she there? Did she see it?"

"Nay, she heard it. An' I says we check them sheets an' find out for sure!"

"It's really none of our business," protested the dish boy. "That is, if it's even true."

But no one was listening to him, much to his annoyance. All of the girls and young women were laughing among themselves, whispering and blushing and vowing to get a look at the Sheets, which had suddenly become the most coveted objects in the entire manor.

2/

Hana delicately traced one finger along the length of a short branch of cherry blossoms someone had placed upon her desk. She thought it might have been Iria--only her sister would think of something so sentimental and sweet. And Quatre, but she hadn't seen Quatre all morning, though he should have been dressing for the banquet and the ball afterwards.

_When has he ever come willingly?_ She frowned. _Too often I think he'll never fully accept his birthright._

That morning's conversation with Investigator Jordan kept swimming to the surface of her mind. His eager, almost fanatical eyes boring into her own, his words like cold water. _The man we caught in connection with a scheme to infiltrate the manor has escaped. We don't know where, but we're searching everywhere for a name, for a picture, for any information at all. He left his computer but no one can get past his security program. You can't trust anyone, Miss Winner. Any of the servants could be a spy--any groundskeeper--even that bodyguard. We're still trying to find any fingerprints on that rosary, but we've had no luck so far. Give us time. We'll find someone who will reveal all. But in the meantime . . ._

"You can't trust anyone," she murmured. Looking down she saw that she had crushed the branch, scattering the cherry blossoms all over the desk.

3/

Quatre opened his eyes to find another pair staring back at him, black, deep, and comforting. He smiled, reaching across to brush a lock of dark hair out of Wu Fei's face. A warm sensation tingled within him--he was so full of happiness he could have cried, but he didn't. He liked not waking up alone.

"G'morning," he said softly, almost afraid that words would break the peace apart.

Wu Fei rolled his eyes, but his lips were curved in a helpless grin. Quatre flushed, remembering the way those lips had felt upon his own. He wanted more, but didn't know how to ask for it. Kisses were good enough for now. Thinking this, he leaned forward and stole one, only to be rolled onto his back by Wu Fei, who smirked mischievously. Months ago, Quatre wouldn't have believed it if someone had told him Wu Fei could look like that.

"You make me feel so good," Quatre said breathlessly, immediately regretting his boldness when Wu Fei ducked his head, hiding his face from the other boy.

"Wu Fei--"

"Oh gods," Wu Fei croaked, and now Quatre realized he was pinned down, and Wu Fei was actually larger than he was (heavy with muscles and so overheated)--the Chinese boy's leg was between his own, and that sudden hardness against his thigh . . .

"Ah!" Before he could stop himself, Quatre had flipped the other boy off of himself and onto the floor. A loud embarrassing thump as Wu Fei's skull connected with the carpet which only cushioned him a little. He groaned, and Quatre quickly tumbled down next to him, apologies stumbling out of his mouth. "I--I'm sorry, I didn't m-mean to--are you okay, Wu Fei, you--I'm so sorry!"

"I've never been so mortified in all my life," Wu Fei muttered, covering his eyes with his right arm.

"Don't be, please. It's just that . . . Wu Fei, I've never done anything like this before," Quatre admitted shyly. "I've sort of known for a long time now that I might not . . . might not be the sort to marry. But I . . . you're the first . . ." He forced himself to meet Wu Fei's dark gaze.

It seemed as if Wu Fei was about to say something, but at that moment there came a knock on the door and a hesitant, "Master Winner? Are you up?"

"Y-yes!" Quatre called, hastily getting to his feet and watching as Wu Fei did the same. "You may come in."

The servant entered, a child of no more than seventeen years. She bowed to both boys and said, "Miss Iria Winner says you're to report to her quarters so that she may help you dress for the ball, sir."

"Er, if it's all the same to you," said Quatre, "I'd rather dress in my own room. Could you bring whatever I'm to wear to me, please?"

"Yes, sir." The girl bowed again. "I must strip your bed first, sir."

"We'll have breakfast while we're waiting," Quatre told the girl and he and Wu Fei hastily pulled on yesterday's clothes before leaving the room. They walked in silence to the dining room, where seven of Quatre's sisters were already seated around the long table, eating their respective breakfasts and talking animatedly.

". . . should have told him to stuff himself," Mara, a cool-eyed woman at the age of twenty-two, was telling Tara, her identical twin.

"I did," Tara said, her large eyes becoming larger when she caught sight of Quatre. "Hey!"

"Well if it isn't our little brother," Mara grinned. "How've you been?"

"Who's the Oriental fellow?" Dirty-blonde Sarah didn't bother to hide her interest, candid as ever.

"Um, hello," Quatre said, trying to seem dignified and at the same time wondering how to get out of dining with all the girls.

"Bodyguard," Mara was explaining to Sarah, who nodded but didn't seem to care what Wu Fei's profession was so much as whether or not he was eligible. "You know everyone and his mother wants a piece of our little Quatre."

"That's not--" Quatre started to protest, but was cut off by a high-pitched squeal from the other end of the table.

"Quatre! Oh, Quatre, I'm sooo glad to see you!" A hyper young woman jumped from her seat and attached herself to the shaken Winner heir. "I still have that outfit, you haaave to try it on, baby, you'll look so sweet, I just know it! Come to my room, won't you?"

"I-I'm afraid I have to eat on the run," Quatre stuttered, nightmarish images of bunny costumes flashing through his mind. "Iria--"

"Oh, that wet blanket!" The woman (Cora, but at the moment he was thinking of calling her another four-letter name) pouted but obediently let Mara pull her away. Quatre and Wu Fei escaped into the kitchen, which was populated by quiet maids who brushed past them silently.

"Well," said Wu Fei. "That was . . . quite an ordeal."

"My sisters are insane," Quatre said earnestly, hailing the cook to save them some food and collapsing into a nearby chair. Wu Fei stood by him, a steady presence that calmed him and made him regret (just a little) his callousness in dealing with his sisters. They really did care for him, and hadn't seen him in so long--what had he expected? He'd have to make an effort to be more patient with them.

Wu Fei was pushing his hair out of his face in aggravation--he hadn't tied it back up and the black locks kept falling into his eyes. "Why are they staring at us like that?" he said in an undertone, gesturing to the gawking maids who immediately found something to be busy with.

"I don't know--I guess because I don't usually eat in here." An assistant cook approached them and bowed low, only to present them with a neat tray of food, which the two promptly devoured, Wu Fei fastidiously taking what he wanted from where the tray was balanced on Quatre's lap.

Afterwards they took the servants' stairway back to Quatre's new room, where they found that the servant girl had laid out the elaborate costume that Quatre was to wear to the ball on top of Quatre's newly changed bed linens. The costume was of the finest dark blue cotton, embroidered in gold and dotted with tiny pearl buttons. The sleeves were narrow and business-like, as was the current fashion, but the pale white silk at the throat seemed from a distant period, and Quatre fingered the material thoughtfully. "She overdid herself this year," he murmured.

Turning, he smiled at Wu Fei. "Of course, you don't have to dress so lavishly. A tuxedo should do. I'll have someone find you one--in the meantime, I think our baths are ready."

"Baths?"

Quatre laughed, surprised to find himself almost looking forward to the ball. It didn't seem so bad, if Wu Fei would be there. "Yeah. We have to look our best tonight, right?"

"I . . . suppose so," the Chinese boy said doubtfully.

4/

Two hours later Wu Fei followed Quatre into the parlor, uncomfortable in his stiff tuxedo and smelling strongly of rosewater, which he vaguely thought was too womanly for a bodyguard. He would rather have died than admit out loud that he didn't mind the scent on Quatre. The bath had been very relaxing, except for the fact that it had been a Japanese style bath--he and Quatre had washed off outside of the huge hot tub and then entered together, both carefully averting their eyes. Wu Fei had been almost more aroused than he could stand, and had hidden this from Quatre, who had already shoved him away once before because of his seemingly uncontrollable...appetite.

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but flush with shame, and he tried to compose himself before the guest waiting in the parlor, who greeted Quatre with a strong handshake. The Winner heir grinned delightedly, his outfit bringing out the blue of his eyes. "Rashid!"

"Master Quatre." The man bowed, ridiculously huge next to the petit blond. "Best wishes on this special day."

"Thank you, my friend." Abruptly, Quatre took Rashid's hand and boyishly tugged him towards a sofa, bidding him to take a seat. "Tell me all that has happened to you in the last few months. Where have you been?"

"When I've been off duty," the Arabian man said, "which hasn't been often, I've been helping with the investigation. A few of my men informed me you attended one of their disgraceful excuses for a party."

Quatre waved a hand carelessly. "That was a hundred years ago, Rashid. Anyway, Wu Fei keeps good watch over me."

Wu Fei met the Arabian man's sharp gaze and held it. He was full of pride over Quatre's assessment of his performance, and his chest swelled a little within the confines of the tuxedo, though he made a show of polite indifference.

"Have there been any threats recently?" Rashid's attention was on Quatre again.

"Nothing besides the--the rosary."

"I heard of that incident."

"Everyone has." Quatre sighed. "It's pretty serious, but I can't figure out why anyone would go through all this trouble when they might have killed me instead of bothering with throwing a religious ornament through my bedroom window."

"Intimidation," said the Maganac shortly. "Psychological warfare. The physical appearance of the Gundams followed the same logic--remember the American boy's Gundam?"

"Deathscythe was quite frightening," Quatre admitted. "But I still stand by Sandrock. It could hold its own in battle and I'm rather glad it wasn't quite so fierce as Duo's Deathscythe . . . you know how I feel about killing soldiers without warning, Rashid."

Rashid smiled wryly. "Indeed I do. And now I think you had best report to the ballroom--your sister seemed quite anxious to see you earlier, and you avoided her like a cat avoids water."

"Iria is more freaked out about this whole thing than even Hana," Quatre said, a faint note of annoyance in his tone. But he stood anyway and said goodbye to his friend, motioning for Wu Fei to follow him.

Wu Fei lingered behind, and the Arabian man said to him quietly, "Be especially alert--enemies walk among us tonight."

The Chinese boy nodded and ran to catch up with Quatre, who gave him a searching glance but was too wrapped up in his worries about his sister to question Wu Fei.

5/

Hana Winner smirked at her sister Iria, who was scolding Quatre gently about his tardiness. He was supposed to be greeting guests and making them feel welcome, as was proper and correct behavior for a young Winner. It was amusing to see the boy visibly shrinking away from Iria, his blue eyes nervously looking anywhere but at her. The little Chinese bodyguard stood indifferently off to one side, half listening to his charge being told off and half admiring the now elaborately decorated ballroom. It was quite nice, if Hana did say so herself (and she did, because she had been the one in charge of the decorating). All dust had been cleared away--paint retouched--windows cleaned until they were like crystal. White lace tablecloths on all the tables. Handsome young servants standing by, ready to serve the guests as soon as they all arrived. A small orchestra performed upon the dais. She'd had to order a new violin; a maid claimed the old one must have fallen out of the instrument case when someone was dusting--but it hadn't been her, no miss, she'd only found it broken on the floor.

Hana sighed. That had been Quatre's favorite violin, though he didn't play much these days. He didn't do much of anything anymore, and she felt somewhat responsible. She shouldn't have let him retreat into his shell--should have kept him involved in politics and world affairs. Now that the milk was spilled, she wasn't sure what she could do. She didn't think the world leaders would appreciate a sincere, "Sorry, my bad."

Well, this ball was a step in the right direction. If Quatre would only be a bit more . . . enthusiastic. As it was, he was dragging himself around like a boiled noodle.

Iria was approaching, her teeth clenched not in anger at their little brother but in fear. Hana knew that Iria was terrified of this room; for her, it was drenched in memories of Catherine and their father, though that was about all Hana knew of her sister's phobia.

"Sit down," Hana advised practically, leading Iria to a chair.

"O-okay." Breath whistled out from between the girl's lips. "God, I hate this place."

"Yeah." Hana frowned. "You should really see a shrink about that."

"No, it--it isn't relevant." Iria closed her eyes, then opened them again slowly. "Does Quatre look like he's having a good time?"

Hana smirked. "Another brilliantly subtle change of subject. No, he doesn't look like he's having a good time, dear sister--in fact, he looks rather like a mouse surrounded by cats."

This was true; all of the young (and not so young) daughters of the wealthy guests were gathered around Quatre, who was blushing furiously and trying rather desperately to avoid the giggling crowd. Hana observed as the unimpressed bodyguard calmly bowed to the girls and said something that, judging by the looks on the girls' faces, was probably sharper than strictly necessary. Then the two boys departed from the room, polar opposites in appearance and manner--Quatre was tucking a strand of blond hair behind one ear, talking animatedly, while Chang Wu Fei was listening intently to whatever his charge was saying, black eyes fierce.

"Ah. The mouse got away," Hana murmured.

Iria pursed her lips, clearly annoyed. "Half the reason we have this ball every year is so that he'll meet prominent members of society and hopefully make connections that will benefit him in the future--"

"You yourself said 'he's only a boy'," Hana pointed out smugly.

"Forgot myself," Iria replied. She crossed her legs primly, pretty in her dark blue dress. Too much satin for Hana's taste. "Hana, darling, don't you--I mean, surely . . . oh, I can't figure out what to make of him anymore. Ever since the war he's been distant."

"What did you expect?" Hana breezily took a seat next to her sister, twisting her feet around in her high-heels, which had turned out to be a size too small. "Moving right along. Have you heard anything recently from the investigator? He lit out of here this morning so fast I had no chance to speak with him."

Iria shook her head. A passing guest greeted the two girls and they stood as one, curtsied, and sat again, resuming their conversation. "The last thing he told me what not to trust anyone--not in those words exactly, but that was what he was getting at."

"Hm." The orchestra started playing a waltz, and pretty young couples flooded the dance floor--girls in queenly dresses and boys in stiff tuxedos, facing each other like opposing sides in a war, taking hands and floating away. "He told me that same thing."

"Think he's on to something?" Iria's foot tapped rhythms against the marble.

Hana shrugged.

6/

Wu Fei stared at Quatre's back, at the way the muscles and bones moved and contracted beneath the thin fabric of the other boy's outfit. He'd long ago stopped trying to follow Quatre's monologue--it had something to do with the women who had nearly tried to abduct him in the ballroom, but beyond that Wu Fei was lost. They were walking by the rooms nearest the ballroom, just killing time and occasionally stealing glances at one another when Quatre let his one-man conversation die down.

"Wu Fei?"

"Uh, yes?" Wu Fei said, startled. They'd stopped at the corner under the pale light of a lamp. Quatre's hair seemed almost white. The Arabian boy laughed softly.

"Did you hear what I said?"

"Er--"

"I asked if you thought that Marigold D'Huit was going to eat me alive."

"And what should I answer?" Wu Fei allowed the tiniest hint of a smirk to appear. "I know you don't want me to say that I think those girls were as eager to get away from you as you were to get away from them."

"What?" Quatre looked horrified. "Are you implying that I am not every bit as handsome and charming as I've been led to believe?"

". . . Maybe."

"You wound me, Wu Fei."

"Mr. Winner!" The two boys turned away from one another and stared down the hallway at the shabbily dressed man rushing towards them, a gun held securely in one hands. Behind him marched about seven other men, all in uniform and armed.

"Investigator Jordan?" Quatre blinked. "What're you--"

"No time--you and you," Jordan beckoned two of his men over, "Escort Mr. Winner off the premises. We'll do a thorough search of the property and evacuate as I deem necessary--"

"Wait!" Quatre backed away warily. "Please explain yourself."

Wu Fei, who had caught on to the urgency in the investigator's speech and manner, took Quatre's arm and pulled the boy over to where the two uniformed soldiers waited. "I think you're in danger," the Chinese boy muttered, glancing sideways at the investigator. "Most likely there's been another threat."

"I can't leave," Quatre replied just as seriously. "My sisters--I can't just abandon them, Wu Fei. Tell him that."

The investigator was already giving loud orders to his men. Wu Fei obediently pulled Jordan aside and said, "Mr. Winner is worried about his sisters. He wants your assurance that they'll be well protected."

"Of course they--hey, hey, wait!"

Wu Fei whirled around just in time to see Quatre dart into the ballroom, his two escorts close behind. "Oh, shit," he cursed with feeling, and heard the shot go off before he saw anything of his attacker. He was on the ground in less than a second, gun in hand. Next to him he felt the investigator collapse, groaning and clutching at his arm.

"Goddamn." The investigator tried to aim his own gun but couldn't. Shots rang out again and again--Wu Fei pulled the trigger until he ran out of bullets. Something fell to the floor--the attacker, he realized when he saw the soldiers beginning to rise. Without waiting for them, Wu Fei stumbled to his feet and raced into the ballroom, pulling a knife from the sleeve of his tux. _That damn Maganac warned me_, was all he could think, _and I didn't take him seriously enough--I let my guard down--I failed._

None of the guests or the guards stationed at the doors were moving, all standing in petrified silence. Wu Fei pushed past them. There in a corner was Quatre, standing erect before his sisters Iria and Hana. A servant faced the Winner heir, arm outstretched and gun cocked.

"Do you repent?" The servant was saying.

Quatre's hands rolled up into fists--his voice shook. "Why are you doing this?"

"Do you repent?"

Wu Fei approached on silent feet, imagining the blade of his knife sinking into the servant's flesh, seeing it disappear all the way to the hilt--one clean thrust into the back, or better yet, across the neck--

Quatre's eyes met his for an instant, clear and blue and beautiful, and then the servant pulled the trigger, and someone screamed. Without thinking, Wu Fei pulled the servant to his chest and slit his throat, tossing the man aside to bleed himself to death and reaching for Quatre, all in an instant.

A body hit the floor--pretty Iria Winner, a messy hole blown through her chest, blood already staining her blue dress purple--Quatre moaned and leant towards her, shrugging off Wu Fei's arms. Women were crying--men demanding to know what was going on--soldiers rushing in--but time had stopped for the three Winners. Hana knelt next to her sister, disbelief written all over her face.

"Iria," she breathed. "Iria . . ."

"Quat . . . Quatre." The word was edged in pain, and every breath Iria took bubbled with the sound of blood. "I didn't mean to . . . push you so--"

"Don't care," Quatre said shakily, one hand covering the wound and the other cradling the girl's head. "I don't care, stop talking, just stop . . ." "Your m-mother . . . she would've been so--so proud of you . . ."

"Wh-what?" Shock fought with agony for control of Quatre's face. "What did you--Iria!"

The girl's eyes had stopped moving--the horrible gurgling breaths had ceased. The soldiers had succeeded in clearing most of the guests out of the room, and were now trying to dislodge both Winners from their dead sister, though neither wanted to let her go. Tears were streaming down Hana's face, and she couldn't seem to get a word through her grief. Quatre was almost calm in comparison--jaw set, shoulders straight, eyes dilated but focused. Wu Fei helped the boy to his feet, noting the blood staining the front of his clothes and his hands.

7/

Sometime later Wu Fei emerged from the large closet that had been converted into a temporary office, blinking owlishly. He'd been questioned for well over an hour concerning his part in the assassination attempt--how had he killed the murderer, why hadn't he been quicker, what was his first impression of the killer, had he ever seen him before--the questions went on forever, and there were no clean-cut answers. All he wanted now was a cup of coffee, a comfortable set of clothes, and Quatre by his side.

He'd been informed that Quatre was being held in a secure room on the first floor, watched at all times by cameras and guards. It was to this room that Wu Fei was headed, pulling at the buttons of his shirt as he went--he'd long ago removed the black jacket and the shirt was soaked through with sweat. When he arrived on the first floor, he found it in disarray. Books and drapery were thrown everywhere, chairs overturned and carpets awry. A soldier stopped Wu Fei and asked him what his business there was.

"I'm Mr. Winner's bodyguard," Wu Fei said firmly, making to go around the soldier.

"His bodyguard?" The soldier stepped in front of the Chinese boy. "I'm in charge of the search party. Maybe you can lend a hand since you probably know where he'd be likely to go."

"Search party?" Wu Fei went white as a sheet. "You mean he's gone?"

"Disappeared less than half an hour ago. We've been combing the area ever since--even called in the local law-enforcement officers. No one's seen a trace of him." The soldier turned to upbraid a slack comrade, and Wu Fei quickly walked past him and out through a side door, into the humid dark night. He stood for a moment thinking. Then he set off for the nearby garage, thoughts whirring through his brain faster than the speed of light.


	10. Chapter Ten

**Chapter Ten**

1/

Trowa arrived at an abandoned train station shortly before midnight and watched the moon climb the heavens. He didn't hear the men approaching until they were on top of him, and then the world went black.

2/

She stared at her hands folded in her lap, lips pressed together tightly against any sound. The young priest had left her only minutes before, and Cathrine could hear him speaking in low, urgent tones to the nun who had come to collect her.

The room was as familiar as her cell, with its spartan walls and single stained glass window, depicting St. John the Baptist and Jesus in a river, a dove descending upon the young Christ.

Something had happened. She didn't know what exactly, but the air of the church was electric and tense. Her captors were waiting for something just as surely as she was.

The door behind her creaked slowly open, and the nun entered without speaking. Cathrine stubbornly remained kneeling, bowing her head as if deep in prayer. _God don't let these people get the best of me._ Red curls obscured her vision. She'd overheard one nun telling another that only the daughter of a witch could possess such vivid red hair.

"Like hellfire," the nun had whispered.

Everyone here had black hair and muddy brown eyes, so naturally they felt an aversion to her oddly colored hair and eyes, which were gray in some lights and blue in others. "Holding back thunderstorms," Trowa had said of them an eternity ago.

"The Lord grants forgiveness to those who ask for it," the nun was intoning solemnly now. Her face was youthful enough, but her hard, wrinkled hands gave away her age.

Cathrine stood and gazed upon the woman, steely-eyed and cool. "In that case, you might want to start asking Him now."

"The hearts of the heathen are as stone." The nun smiled pleasantly. "Child, you will see the light."

"Hopefully soon," Cathrine retorted. "I haven't seen the sun in weeks. This place is so dreary."

The nun escorted Cathrine out of the little room which had been set aside for the sessions with the young priest. So far, of course, there had been no progress--Cathrine resolutely refused to speak, though the priest had implied that perhaps "a taste of the fires of hell" might change her mind. She was afraid that any day now she would be led to some dark torture chamber instead of the confession room, but she tried not to think on it too much.

Cathrine and the nun were passing by the huge entryway of the sanctuary when Cathrine saw him, skinnier and paler than she remembered, meters away in the middle of the nave but she recognized him instantly. Her heart stuttered, and a whimper escaped from her lips. Then a scream, and she was tearing across the sanctuary, scrambling around pews and half-tripping with terror. He was blind-folded and hand-cuffed. The group of men surrounding him were already ushering him away, at the same time hands took hold of her, yanking her back from his now retreating form. She struggled ferociously, striking out and crying, "Trowa, Trowa!"

"C-Cathrine!" His voice climbed the scale, from a whisper to a shout. The men around him fought to keep him still, but he stumbled away. Cathrine bit the arm of the person holding her, and he let go of her, gasping in pain. Trowa--three steps--her arms were around him for an instant, his breath hot against her neck, his body slender against her, hands cuffed behind his back but he fell against her and she sobbed into the collar of his shirt, fingers digging into his shoulder blades--then they were forced apart, shoved to opposite sides of the sanctuary.

"N-no!" Cathrine shrieked, fighting passionately against the hands holding her. "No, let me go--"

"Cathrine! Cathy!"

"Shut up, you little bastard!" Sickening thud as a man's fist connected with Trowa's gut, and the boy collapsed, hacking. Cathrine could no longer see anything beyond the blur of her tears.

"You'll be punished for this," the man holding Cathrine said. "Give up."

"Goddamned bastard." She hardly felt the slap that responded to her insult. She could only think of Trowa.

3/

The room was dark, lit only by a single light bulb, like in those old detective flicks where the policemen interrogate a suspect--except that these were no policemen here. The two men, one short and one tall, were not much older than thirty or so. The short one was dressed in the sensible black of a priest. The other man wore plain jeans and a ragged old leather jacket. Both sported serious expressions.

"It's a cold world out there," the taller man said presently. "Hard to trust people, you know? They've got all these walls. You're probably not a bad guy. I've read your file. Just a regular Joe trying to make ends meet. But nowadays we gotta be careful, you know?"

"You're going to kill me," Trowa said matter-of-factly. He wandered where they'd put his weapons after they'd disarmed him--not in this room. He wasn't sure he could escape from this without them.

The priest smiled a little sadly. "Who's to say that you won't go running to the enemy once you've got your precious sister back? There is a battle going on as we speak, Mr. Barton. Good versus evil. We want to prevent you from choosing the wrong side."

"I don't care about your battle," Trowa replied. "Kill whoever you want--I can't stop you, and I really can't hold it against you." Not after all the lives lost at my hands. "Get rid of me if you want. All I ask--"

"Don't worry, we'll let your sister go," the tall man said impatiently. "She doesn't know enough to pose any threat to us, and who'll believe a slutty little circus bitch, anyway?"

"Wong," the priest said warningly, and the man seemed chastised. The priest turned to Trowa. "Let me explain. You must have informed someone of your past employment because the private investigator hired by the enemy received word of the planned assassination and arrived in time to prevent it. One of our men was murdered--another is in custody, and will probably reveal our whereabouts within a week's time. Our organization is in shambles thanks to you. Surely you understand that we must eliminate the man who instigated all of this--that is, you."

Trowa said nothing.

"We'll release your sister on one condition," said Wong, the tall man with the leather jacket. "You must take up your cross. Admit your guilt before the world--take the blame for the assassination attempt, deny knowledge of our existence, breathe not a word to anyone regarding us. It's a death sentence, but you deserve it."

Trowa looked away. His wrists were chaffed from the rope binding his hands to the back of this chair. He was hungry and frightened and already sure of what his choice would have to be. Would Cathrine ever forgive him if he did this? No. She was a born romantic--she would have wanted them to die together. But he couldn't bear the thought of her suffering because of his selfishness, and he knew that one day she would move on and forget how badly this was going to hurt. One day.

A Bible was placed in his lap, and one of his hands untied. Angry red marks encircled his wrist, vivid against the black cover of the holy book. He felt rather than saw the gun pressed against the back of his head. "Do you swear to it?"

Trowa swallowed. Imagined Cathrine in a nice house in the countryside with carpets and the most beautiful curtains in all the world.

"Yeah," he said gruffly. "I swear."


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Chapter Eleven**

1/

The eastern horizon was pale blue, lightening steadily, the threat of the rising sun evident in the reflection in the calm water. The beach was just as he remembered it--isolated and beautiful, smelling of dirt and water with not a hint of salt. He parked the car where sand met grass and pulled off his fancy dress shoes, holding them in one hand as he trudged up the dune separating the rest of the beach from view. His feet sank deep into the warm sand, and the hem of his black pants was slowly becoming tan.

_My father loved this place . . ._

A thin lithe form stood at the edge of the water, a black shadow against the horizon. The small waves, weakening as they approached, lapped at the boy's bare toes.

_My sisters and I used to play on the beach when the weather was hot. This is the off-season, but I like being here anyway._

Wu Fei came to a halt next to the boy, toes twitching a little in the goopy sand. The two stood in silence for an eternity, and then Wu Fei said, "Quatre, it isn't your fault."

"I should have realized what she was thinking," the boy muttered. "She only ever thought of me. I only ever thought of getting away from her. What does that make me?" He looked at Wu Fei. "Iria's better than me. She's always been better than me. She cares about other people. They all think I'm so generous, but I'm not. I don't want their pain."

"Listen, Winner. Your sister was the exception, not the rule. I don't want to deal with other people's pain anymore than you do. I've got enough problems--you've got enough problems. We're both pretty messed up, but so is everyone else."

Tears traced the curves of Quatre's face; two shining droplets fell from his chin to the ground. "I know but I k-keep thinking of all the time I've lost--I sh-should've told her--" He stifled a ragged sob, and then hiccoughed twice. Sat down hard, rubbing away his tears stubbornly. "Should've t-told her that I--"

Wu Fei knelt and allowed Quatre to burrow into his arms, tucking his wet face against his neck. He wanted to say, She knew you loved her, but he wasn't sure about that. He wanted to say, You don't have to worry any longer, because I'm here, but he wasn't sure about that either. Instead he let Quatre weep himself into exhaustion, and then laid back in the sand, watching the edge of the sun rise golden over the horizon, where black trees imprisoned its light.

2/

The guards saluted Quatre when he approached the manor, dirty and tired as he was, Wu Fei trudging along beside him. They went in through the servants' entrance, unnerved by the silence--every servant in the place had been taken in for questioning and none had returned to their duties yet. The two boys washed in the kitchen, shivering from the cool sink-water--their clothes were tossed in the open laundry and they acquired fresh trousers and shirts, too exhausted to care about appearances.

"I'd better report to that damn investigator," Wu Fei muttered, hiding a yawn behind his hand. "He'll want to know you're safe--probably already has word of your return, so if I were you I'd hide."

"Yeah." Quatre's eyes were red-rimmed. Reality hadn't quite hit him yet, but it would. "I'll be in a guest bedroom on the third floor--you'll find me, won't you?"

Wu Fei smirked and took his leave, formulating in his mind exactly what he would say to Jordan to explain Quatre's disappearance. "You know it."

3/

"Hana?" Quatre twisted the gilded doorknob, disturbed to find that the door was locked. "Hana, open up, please!"

"Sir, she won't--she hasn't come out in two days." The nervous little maid toyed with the corner of her apron, not daring to look her master in the eye. "We--we've tried to bring her food but she won't see anyone."

"She'll see us," said Wu Fei grimly, reaching over Quatre's shoulder to rap briskly upon the well-polished mahogany. "Miss Winner, your brother wishes to speak with you." He paused, then added, "I'm not above breaking down this door."

"Mr. Chang!" The maid looked scandalized. "Master Winner's grandfather had this door built over a hundred years ago, along with the rest of the manor!"

"And this concerns me why . . . ?"

"Listen."

All three were immediately silent, ears straining for any sound from the closed off room. After about a minute, Wu Fei exhaled loudly, not bothering to hide how annoyed he was. "I'm truly sorry, Grandfather Winner," he muttered aloud, and then aimed a powerful side-kick at the door. The ancient wood quaked but didn't give. He was lifting his foot for the second time when the quiet yet distinct sound of a lock being turned reached their ears.

Quatre looked at his bodyguard, respect lighting upon his features for a moment, then said to the maid, "Please bring something up from the kitchen--leave it outside the door, won't you?"

"Yes, sir," the maid replied, her voice light with relief. Quatre gave her a half-hearted smile and watched her until he was sure she couldn't eavesdrop.

"Um . . ." he began, unsure how to phrase his request so that it wouldn't offend Wu Fei.

"I'll wait here," the Chinese boy said quietly, a little smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He was wearing his typical more-professional-than-thou outfit--black trousers and white shirt, neatly pressed, understated and honest.

Quatre felt his pulse quicken. He could taste alcohol on his tongue, though he hadn't had anything to drink that day. Anticipation maybe. Just the thought of it made him want to . . .

He took a deep breath, nodded to Wu Fei, before quickly pulling open the door to Hana's room, pausing when the blast of hot air hit him. He reluctantly closed the door behind him, already beginning to sweat though he wore a casual shirt and light shorts. All of the lights were turned off and all of the windows thrown open--which explained the unbearably stifling humidity. It almost made Quatre long for the desert, for dry heat that didn't cling like a second skin.

Hana was not cowering in a corner as he'd half expected to find her. She was sitting upon her bed, arms crossed and lips pressed tightly together. The bed had not been made, and she was dressed in her pajamas still. Quatre bit the inside of his cheek, debating whether to take a seat next to her on the bed or sit in the armchair on the other side of the room. He finally settled for leaning against the wall, close to his sister but not close enough to make her feel as if she were cornered.

"I'm sorry," Hana muttered darkly, one hand raising to tuck a curl behind her ear. Her hair was a little oily; Quatre made a mental note to have a bath prepared for her later.

"For what?"

"For . . . you know." Her eyes were focused not on him but on the wall, just left of his ear. Uncomfortable in his presence. "All the press--I know you hate shit like that. Now, anyway. You used to be, I dunno, involved, and now . . . " She paused. "Now you're hiding yourself from the world, aren't you?"

He realized he'd been holding his breath, and let it out forcibly. Tried to think of a good excuse. So she was right; of course she was right. After the Eve Wars he'd buried himself in a grave of personal concerns, political life be damned. Today had been the first time he'd walked out the front door into a sea of reporters in a very long time. And to the surprise of his bodyguard and every other member of the estate's staff, Quatre had not ordered the anxious press off the premises. He had firmly stood his ground and delivered a short statement, off the top of his head, pausing only once when the image of his sister flashed before his eyes (purple, her dress was purple with blood). But then he'd forced himself onward because. Because it was his duty.

"Maybe not anymore," he murmured gently, a tiny smile playing over his lips.

Hana shook her head, expression unchanging. "Quatre . . . I don't know what exactly to do. It hurts to open my eyes." She covered them. "But it hurts to keep them shut, too. I keep--keep seeing her. Must be going crazy--"

"No," he said. It was too much like . . . that time. Father dead, and something inside of him had snapped and he'd . . . he wouldn't think of it. "You're hurt, Hana, but you're going to be fine."

He said it like he meant it.

4/

Wu Fei watched Quatre exit his sister's room, blue eyes downcast. Wordlessly the Chinese boy followed his friend up the familiar hallways, down steep staircases, and finally into the kitchen. No servants were to be found; most had been dismissed until further notice. Quatre seated himself in the chair that he was most accustomed to, slumping a little; his face was paler than usual, Wu Fei noted unhappily.

The bodyguard busied himself with making lunch; though he thought to himself rather harshly that he was not this boy's servant, he had to admit that Quatre couldn't cook worth a damn, and if Wu Fei didn't do it, they would both go hungry.

"Honey please," Quatre said when the other boy began to make the tea.

Wu Fei said nothing, but grimaced and pointedly left his tea unflavored.

"I'm not sure I helped her at all," Quatre sighed, gratefully accepting the hot mug of sweetened drink. Wu Fei could feel eyes following him as he went about fixing their meal, but chose to ignore this. "I don't like to think about Iria anymore. But I--I sort of have to, because otherwise..."

"Duty," Wu Fei muttered.

"Yes. It's my duty." Quatre paused thoughtfully. "For a long time . . . I didn't want to accept that, but now I'm no longer afraid."

Wu Fei, unable to reply to this, stared out the small window above the sink. Clouds gathered over the treetops and the few reporters still stationed outside. A storm coming on fast.


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Chapter Twelve **

1/

"Is that . . . Trowa?"

Heero Yuy's eyes narrowed, dark blue slits embedded in brown skin. He looked up from the white glow of his laptop. The apartment was dark except for the laptop's screen and the flashing scenery of the television. Stifling a yawn, he minimized all the windows open on the computer and crossed the room to sit carefully down upon the sofa. Duo Maxwell, cross-legged on the carpet, remained glued to the t.v.

"I'll be damned," Heero swore softly, directing Duo to turn up the volume.

A Channel 7 reporter stood before the camera, mike held close to his mouth as he pushed his way through a crowd of cameramen and journalists towards the steps of a huge building.

"I'm here at the historical Governor's Mansion on Colony C1716, Lagrange Point 1," the reporter shouted above the roar. "Crucial information related to the plot against the powerful Winner family has just been uncovered--the mastermind behind this scheme has surrendered himself, and is about to make a public statement--"

The camera zoomed in on a small figure behind a podium at the top of the steps. The boy was dwarfed by the men surrounding him and the century-old columns holding up the roof of the Governor's Mansion, but his features were unmistakable.

"It is him!" Duo's mouth fell open, shock written all over his face. "What the fuck?"

Heero frowned.

Somewhere on Colony C1716, Trowa Barton coolly addressed the hundreds of cameras focused on him.

2/

"I don't regret my actions, nor do I care to explain them." Trowa held his breath for a moment. This was it. This was his moment. Butterflies swooped around in his stomach--felt like he was going to puke. "I confess to all charges against me, and am prepared to accept the consequences."

3/ Heero felt Duo's left hand on his right shoe. Anchor. An anchor into reality. He blinked.

The camera returned to the Channel 7 reporter as Trowa was led into the Mansion. "As you can see," the reporter said breathlessly, "Barton is being taken to the colony's maximum security prison at this moment--the Winner family has not pressed charges yet, but it has recently suffered a huge blow with the death of the late Mr. Winner's daughter, Iria Winner."

The television screen abruptly divided into two halves--on one side the reporter, on the other the Channel 7 studio and two newscasters.

"Is it true that Barton was a Gundam pilot in the Eve Wars?" a pretty Asian newscaster asked.

"Yes, it is," said the reporter. "In fact, there are rumors that the young heir of the Winner family was himself involved in the Wars, and was a comrade of Barton's at some point."

"That might explain the Winners' reluctance to press--"

Heero got up and pressed the power button.

"Wh-what!" Duo reached forward to turn the television back on, but Heero caught his hand. "Heero--"

"Shut up." His head hurt. Half of him sort of anxious about Duo's fingers warm against his own; he should really let them go, but he didn't want to. Half of him reeling because he knew Trowa was bullshitting the billions of people out there attached to their screens like Heero had been only seconds before. And by now he had concluded that Les Frères--or whoever they were--had indeed been targetting Quatre Winner. So of course Trowa had no reason to confess to anything--but then why . . . ?

That girl, Cathrine. She had bait written all over her. So maybe Trowa had been framed. Or blackmailed.

Duo's gaze was piercing, curious but wary. Like he knew what was going on inside of Heero's head. But Heero wasn't sure what exactly he could do. If Trowa was going public with this, in all likelihood his sister was in danger and he was willing to sacrifice himself for her. Heero didn't think he could interfere without treading on a lot of toes. Thin ice all around.

"We aren't going to talk about this," he told Duo firmly.

A shrill tone from the laptop announced that Heero had mail. Duo jerked his hand away, giving Heero a strange look before turning away to face the television again. Sighing inwardly, Heero stood and returned to his computer, clicking on the icon that brought up his mailbox. He guessed what it was before he actually saw it; not many people had his e-mail address, and he could think of only one that had reason to contact him.

The message was short and to the point--Heero hadn't been expecting sentimentality, but the cold honesty worried him a little. 'By the time you receive this, I will have confessed to a crime I won't say I'm innocent of, and will be unable to initiate contact with the outside world. I must therefore ask a favor of you . . .'

He hastily memorized the number the message supplied, and deleted the message entirely, as it had directed.

Then he picked up the nearby telephone receiver, and dialed.

4/

When they dropped her off at the airport and gave her the ticket she cried. Not aloud, just soft little sobs that went unnoticed by the people around her hurrying from point A to point B. When she was in control again, she walked in the direction opposite the terminal. First to the bathroom, where she washed her face and avoided looking at herself in the mirror. Then outside, under the stars. The colony weather control system was simulating night. She was vaguely aware that this involved blocking out sunlight in some way; the sleep patterns of the residents of the colony were at odds with the length of time that the earth's orbit obstructed the rays of the sun.

Mentally numb, Cathrine's feet led her down a street crowded with businessmen and construction workers, families and couples, war veterans and pacifists. They'd be boarding the shuttle in a few hours. Here was a souvenir shop, selling overpriced tee-shirts and figurines. Across the street was an ice-cream stand. And there was a growing collection of people, staring up at the huge rectangular surface of the public vid-screen.

". . . do I care to explain them." Trowa. That was Trowa speaking, his feral green eyes blinking slowly, as if he didn't quite know what he was saying. She stepped forward, face uplifted and blank. "I confess to all charges against me, and am prepared to accept the consequences."

"What . . . what's going on?" A girl beside her was tugging on the sleeve of her tall companion.

Cathrine listened, half-dazed as the man explained, "Some former Gundam pilot turned himself in a few hours ago--he was, like, the leader of some sort of anti-Muslim organization that was, you know, targetting that Winner guy . . . I dunno, it's been all over the news, but I haven't been paying much attention. Your sweet little face keeps distracting me . . ."

The girl giggled. For a moment, Cathrine was somewhere else--

Trowa bound and walking down the aisle of the church that was really a prison. Trowa blindfolded but still unmistakably himself. The shape of his mouth when it formed her name. How dear his voice, his scent, his presence was. How much she loved him.

--and then she was turning away. It hurt. More than she thought anything could ever hurt, but it did, and she wasn't sure she could stand it.

"I know what you're thinking, Trowa," she whispered to herself. The lights of the terminal, of the airport lobby, made a gaudy yellow parallelogram upon the gray sidewalk. She halted just short of the entrance. "You always take . . . the easy way out."

But she'd thought those old urges had died after Trowa's retirement from the battlefield. She'd thought she would never again see that look in his eyes (Trowa in his mobile suit, preparing to self-detonate--her hand hard against his face and it wasn't impossible for him to see reason, after all).

What would become of him? Her captors must have threatened him somehow; maybe if she went into hiding, and contacted him anonymously, and said she was safe and he didn't have to do this--but where, and how long did she have? Maybe . . . maybe she could get in touch with Winner . . . but what good would that do? Would anyone believe Trowa if he retracted his confession now?

A stocky little man in uniform came running out of the airport, his face very red. When he saw her, he asked quickly, "Are you Miss Bloom?"

"Y-yeah," Cathrine said, startled out of her thoughts.

"Good, good, please come with me." The man spun on his heel and reentered the airport, Cathrine following behind warily.

Past the lobby and the reception desk the man led her, down a sterile white hallway and into a private office. The man gestured to the phone, which was off its hook--"You have a call waiting."--and left her.

Well this is how it all started, isn't it? Telephone calls and men in suits. She cradled the receiver in her hands for a moment, then pressed it to her ear. "Hello."

"Cathrine Bloom?"

"Here." She thought she recognized the voice, throaty and deep, but couldn't place it.

"Your brother says to not worry about him, and please take care of the lions."

"H-huh?" A click, like the caller had hung up. "Wait a second!" Silence and then the dial tone. Cathrine replaced the receiver where it belonged. She could only assume that Trowa had made contact with someone and told them to deliver his message. Just like him. Basically telling her to butt out and return to the circus, where she belonged. She would have laughed if the tears hadn't already been falling from her eyes like pearls.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Chapter Thirteen**

1/

The Headquarters of Winner Enterprises was located in the center of a bustling city, its titanium-steel frame reaching almost to the colony's sky barrier. Beyond this was pure outer space, but the use of high-tech mirrors, shields and computers gave the barrier an almost earth-like appearance--whenever the weather control system simulated a specific event (such as rain, a necessity for the agriculture and livestock centers, which provided the colony with its own food), the barrier corresponded as best it could with everything from a gray background slashed through with angry clouds to clear blue on the best of days.

Headquarters itself was a familiar landmark for any T0057 resident; the Winners themselves were alternately despised and respected, but the home base of their huge business was unanimously regarded with an affectionate air. Children attempted misguided skateboard stunts off of the handrails of its side entrance, where a guard indulgently watched and called out the occassional half-hearted threat. Dark suited, serious businessmen and women passed by the front entrance on a day to day basis, dropping coins in the guitar cases of performers who used the marble steps as an improvised stage.

Currently, Headquarters was in an uproar, though the initial shock was beginning to wear off. Hana Winner, usually a huge presence in the offices, was nowhere to be found, and for the first time in ages, Quatre Winner himself was seated calmly in his private office (humming under his breath a snatch of song that one of the guitar players has been belting out earlier that morning), shuffling through papers and taking phone calls.

Wu Fei calmly ticked off the seconds in his head, pretending to read a day old newspaper which had emblazoned across its front page, GUNDAM PILOT PLOTS MURDER OF WINNER HEIR. _Ridiculous_, he mentally growled. _The Oracle never gets the story straight._ He didn't believe for a second that Trowa Barton was behind whoever was targetting Quatre; the threats, the "attacks"--they just weren't his style. And Trowa had never shown any signs of resentment towards Quatre. Quite the opposite, Wu Fei had to admit. He stole a glance at Quatre, who was mulling over a document detailing certain problems encountered on one of the resource satellites. The boy seemed controlled enough. Fair locks fell messily over his face, and he kept pushing them aside absentmindedly, as if deep in thought.

A knock at the door broke Wu Fei's concentration on his companion, and he rose to stand next to Quatre as the person on the other side admitted himself.

Private Investigator Jordan entered the room with a dramatic bow and flourish of his ratty coat. "At your service, Mr. Winner."

Wu Fei scowled.

Smiling, Quatre indicated that the investigator take a seat in the plush chair across from him. Wu Fei swallowed his dislike and returned to his seat, both eyes firmly fixed on Jordan, who in turn was staring back at him knowingly.

"I must apologize for my rash actions on . . ." Quatre's lips tightened, and he noticibly forced himself onward. "On the night my sister died. I should have listened to you."

The investigator shook his head. "No. If anything, it was I who made the mistake of not paying closer attention to you--should have tied you up and hidden you away, eh?"

The little heir blushed faintly.

"Anyway, I don't hold it too much against you, Mr. Winner. As I informed you earlier over the phone, I have very good news. We have captured the leader of the organization that was behind your sister's death. I say 'we captured', but in fact the scoundrel turned himself in--"

"I--I heard." Quatre leaned forward slightly. "It's been all over the news--the papers--but I can't believe . . . the man responsible for all this is not Trowa Barton."

"Oh no, I'm sure he is. He was taken into custody earlier today, but my men imprisoned him weeks ago after discovering him in an apartment building guarded by known terrorists. Of course, he has a fantastic cover story--some sort of circus job on a colony far from here--but he's already confessed, and that won't do him any good _now_."

"No, you don't understand--" Suddenly Quatre paused. His brow furrowed thoughtfully. "May I see him?"

Jordan laughed harshly. "'See him'? No, you can't 'see him'! He's a criminal, locked away in C1716's maximum security prison. Are you bloody insane? Why on earth would you want to 'see him' for?"

"Because I . . . want to face the man who killed my sister." Wu Fei started, and looked sharply at Quatre, whose expression was now blank. "I have to see him, so he'll _know_."

"Look, I can understand how you feel, but it just isn't possible," Jordan protested, tugging at the collar of his coat. He seemed very disturbed by Quatre's words.

"And why not?" Wu Fei raised an eyebrow haughtily at the investigator. "Isn't the security at this prison top of the line? Why should Mr. Winner be in any danger? Are you implying that there is a chance this Barton fellow could escape?"

"N-no, not at all." Jordan looked from one boy to the other and back, finally seeming to come to the conclusion that neither was going to back down. "Well, it's really your decision, and I can't stop you if you're determined . . ."

"Thank you so much, Mr. Jordan." Quatre stood and bowed, his brilliant blue eyes sparkling like two sapphires.

Scratching his head worriedly, the investigator left without returning the bow. When they were alone, Quatre turned to Wu Fei and said, "Trowa must be innocent."

Wu Fei made no reply. He was thinking that he would bring his gun, just in case Quatre's faith (and his own) was ill-founded.

2/

A heavy silence fell over Quatre on the shuttle ride to the L1 colony C0057. There were many things he wanted to say, but he couldn't find the energy to actually move his lips, or do anything other than stare out the window at space and the blue-brown-white sphere that was earth.

_They must think us so silly, those people down there_, he thought sadly.

He refused the lunch the stewardess brought, and avoided Wu Fei's worried gaze; his thoughts weighed on his mind heavily, pounding behind his eyes. Trowa was up to something, but he had no idea what. During the wars, Trowa had often relied on infiltration tactics . . . but Quatre could think of nothing that Trowa could gain by becoming a prisoner. Why not a guard? And why L1? It made no sense at all.

Unless Trowa really was guilty, but that was not possible. Quatre berated himself for even entertaining the thought for a second.

A few reporters were still camped out on the steps to the Governor's Mansion. Quatre rolled up the window of the car, suddenly grateful that it was tinted and obscurred his features from curious eyes. The prison (Angleworth it was named, though it was rarely called that by anyone outside of its walls) was possessed of the most boring architecture imaginable, hardly more than a concrete square. However, it was surrounded by two walls: one an electric wire mesh, and the other stone topped with barbed wire. Between the two walls were trained guard dogs that barked at the car as it was admitted into the tiny parking lot.

An elderly man met them and directed them through a metal detector (which revealed that Wu Fei was carrying a gun and two knives, which he refused to leave behind) and finally led them into the prison itself.

"Well, son," the man said confidentially to Quatre, "I for one do unnerstand why yer a-doin' this--if the basterd'd done my fambly like he's done yers . . . well, he wouldn't've made it ter this place, I tell ya what."

"Thank you," Quatre said gently, recognizing the kindness behind the words, though they pained him.

As they walked past the barred cells, that peculiar sense of silence fell over Quatre again. He'd been in this place before; not in Angleworth, but in places not unlike it, and on the other side of those cool bars. Quatre glanced at his bodyguard, wondering if the same thing had occurred to him, but Wu Fei's face seemed to have been forcibly wiped clean of all emotion.

"This's it," the elderly man stated, warning the two not to venture too near the cell, in case the prisoner should try "any funny bus'ness", before leaving the boys alone.

The cell was bright with artificial lighting, its walls unadorned tan (though it was gray in places where the paint had chipped off). A toilet was set up in one corner, and in the opposite was a bed, built into the wall. Trowa Barton sat upon this, not looking up or showing any sign that he was aware of their presence.

Being careful to stay no less than a few centimeters away from the vertical bars (there were, after all, security cameras positioned all over this place, and Quatre didn't want to risk a worried guard thinking him too thoughtless), Quatre called softly, "Trowa?"

The green eye that was visible to Quatre fell closed. So familiar--that lanky frame, long arms crossed over his knees, sharp features and that curtain of brown hair. It really was Trowa; for some reason, Quatre had almost thought that . . . no, it was mad.

"I knew you would come, Quatre." "Trowa!" Quatre couldn't help the jump in his voice. Even after all this time, he was still affected by this boy--not in the gut-jarring way that he was affected by Wu Fei (and he did not want to open that can of worms just yet). It was a soft sort of feeling that welled up within him; something like friendship and something like _knowing_ they were on the same page, if not always in the same book. "Trowa, please tell me what--"

"No, Quatre. A series of events has been put into motion." A ghost of a smile. "Please go home, and don't worry about me."

After that, no matter what Quatre said, Trowa would not reply or acknowledge him.

3/

The curtains had been drawn over the ceiling to floor windows, and the golden chandelier painted everything in warm yellow hues. For one startling moment, Hana thought, _This is my home_, and then she fully entered the dining room. The long table was bare; she knew that recently Quatre and his Chinese bodyguard had taken to eating in the kitchen. Still, she seated herself at the head of the table, crossing her legs comfortably.

Father would be sitting where she was right now, maybe watching Catherine at his right with that tender look he used to have whenever he was around her, maybe smiling at Iria two seats down on his left. Iria would be scolding or praising one of her younger sisters--before Quatre's birth, she'd been forever sticking her nose in the other girls' lives, straightening things as she saw fit. Hana herself would have been laughingly dismissing Iria, elbowing Naia, the eldest daughter, to get her to agree. Mara and Tara would be bickering over something trivial. Cora would be complaining loudly about the food, while mentally planning another outrageous costume design. A few of the girls would be on earth--the rest on other colonies. But Hana thought of them all affectionately.

When Quatre was born, all of that fell apart. Catherine had died, and slowly Hana's sisters had stopped coming to the estate. Iria stayed to help Father raise Quatre, and to continue her medical studies on her home colony. But eventually, as Quatre grew older, even Iria's visits became few and far between.

_We were all kind of hung up back then. Too close, I guess. I felt like a teenager until I was twenty-five. _She grinned, leaning her chair back on its rear legs._ Can't help but think that you're not really gone, Iria. Any minute now, I expect you to show up and take control. I know I don't seem to have any at the moment. God, and Quatre . . ._

Quatre had grown up much too fast; when he'd withdrawn into himself after the Wars, it had genuinely frightened Hana half to death. Not as badly as when he'd been younger, and had insisted that he and his sisters were all tools of their father.

"Well hell, Iria," Hana realized suddenly. "You've given it away, haven't you?" It was a miracle Quatre hadn't asked her about it yet . . . or perhaps not. She _had_ been inconsolable for a few days. Surely she owed Quatre an explanation. Father had, of course, been flatly against any suggestion that Quatre be made aware of the true nature of his birth. But Father was dead, and . . . Iria was dead, and Quatre was almost an adult. Nineteen and already the legal leader of a huge business empire, as well as a war hero. Yeah, it was about time.

4/

"I wonder what he meant."

Wu Fei swallowed his mouthful of canned spaghetti (they'd resorted to canned food recently, neither really caring to cook anything more complicated in light of all that was happening, though they did make an effort to add more food to the selection that they left at Hana's door during mealtimes). They were using two large books as makeshift trays, since they more often than not sat in the plain straightback chairs already available in the kitchen area. Wu Fei actually preferred this to the elaborate dining room, which seemed so huge when only occupied by two people. This was more personal, somehow.

He noticed that Quatre was only pushing his food around his plate, having not really eaten anything at all. "Barton?"

"Yes." Blue eyes met his. "He said that 'a series of events have been put into motion'. D'you think--"

"No, I don't think. I'm not thinking of it at all," Wu Fei said practically. "There's nothing you or I can do; well, of course, you can choose not to press charges, but the courts will still find a way to get their hands on him. They can't let a self-confessed criminal walk free; it might give other people ideas. That's politics, Quatre."

"That's _cruel_, Wu Fei." The comment lacked any fire, but Wu Fei knew that his Arabian charge was not so ready to admit defeat.

Wu Fei shrugged, finishing off the last of his spaghetti. He took Quatre's still full plate and scraped the left over sauce and noodles in the trash can; though he hated to waste food, he knew he couldn't eat any more of the stuff, and Quatre was apparently going on a hunger strike. "Want desert, at least?" he asked flatly, hiding his anxiety.

"Desert?" Quatre blinked at the suden change of subject.

Rolling his eyes, Wu Fei deposited their plates in the sink and pulled open the freezer. He took out a bag of blueberries, which he showed Quatre. "Desert."

"But they're . . . frozen. Shouldn't you should cook them or something?"

"I don't suppose it matters." Ripping open the plastic bag, Wu Fei palmed a few berries before handing over the bag to Quatre, who hesitantly took one. He slipped it between his lips and suckled on it. Wu Fei felt himself overheat, and quickly ate a few of the berries himself. They were a little tart, but he liked them that way.

"Hm," said Quatre. He was reaching his hand in the bag to grab a handful of the chilled fruit. "Rather good."

Wu Fei smirked. "You're a mess," he said, amused.

"Wha--?" This cute little shocked expression flitted over Quatre's face and remained there.

Wu Fei caught the other boy's hand in his own and turned it over, palm up. The first two fingers and thumb were stained a reddish-purple. Quatre's lips were darker than usual, and his teeth a faint shade of blue. "In this case, 'mess' might be too gentle a word."

"Oh dear," Quatre said, mortified.

"Hey, me too," Wu Fei said. He smiled faintly. Leaned forward over Quatre and pressed their lips together. Then he straightened and murmured, "Let's get cleaned up."

5/

Sometime in the night Wu Fei awoke. Instinctively he reached across his own cot to Quatre's bed, pushed together as they were, and when he encountered only sheets and cool comforter, he sat up, blearily scanning the room. All was dark and still; wherever Quatre was, he had not been here in a long while. Tossing off his blankets, he quickly pulled on a pair of pants over his boxers, and a shirt he didn't waste time buttoning up. Almost as an afterthought he donned his gun holster, the weapon securely held in place as it always was. It didn't hurt to be cautious.

Silently he checked the bathroom and every other room he suspected Quatre might visit in the middle of the night. He was just deciding to pay the kitchen a visit (maybe Quatre's appetite had returned) when he noticed that the door to the ballroom was slightly ajar.

The room was cold; for some reason its temperature was always ten degrees below that of the rest of the mansion. A beam of light was focused on the marble floor, but it swept up as Wu Fei entered and positioned itself on his face. Shielding his eyes, Wu Fei said in a rather pained way, "It's me."

"Oh." Light tenor voice and the beam removed itself, only to flirt along the opposite wall. Quatre was seated indian style on the floor, engulfed mostly in shadow--the flashlight in his hands revealed enough of him that Wu Fei could identify him. Ungracefully Wu Fei slid to the floor next to him, wincing at the sudden coldness against his rear-end.

They sat in companionable silence for a while, Quatre dancing the beam all around the room but focusing mostly in one spot; something about it disturbed Wu Fei, but he couldn't put his finger on what, exactly. "I've been meaning to ask you," Quatre said quietly after a while. "And you don't have to answer if you don't wish to."

". . . Go on."

"Why did you leave the Preventers? You said that your jobs on L3 weren't very prestigious--or all that well-paying--but as a Preventer you were provided with free room and board, and you know that the pay there is excellent . . . so why did you give all that up?"

Startled, Wu Fei felt his mouth drop against his chest and then close again with a snap. "I didn't leave," he said stiffly. "I was discharged."

"_You_?" Quatre stared at him incredulously.

"It came to my commander's attention that I was an alcoholic." Wu Fei frowned, the old shame creeping over him again like a rancid odor. "Said it would impair my judgement on the field. So I was let go. I haven't been back since."

Most of the memories were in gray shades; tossing his uniform in his locker, glaring at any young cadet who dared give him a questioning look, longing for a good drink and a bed to lay on. First he'd gone to his home colony cluster. He'd gotten drunk and thrown out of a couple of bars. Scorned by the colonists, though he'd wanted to shout, _I'm the last living member of the Long clan; you shouldn't think so lowly of me._ Realizing that they had every right to. And then when he couldn't bear it, he boarded a shuttle to L3, where he remained until that summons from Hana Winner.

It occurred to him that he hadn't been desperately in need of alcohol for a few days now. Maybe its hold was beginning to wear off; maybe Quatre had something to do with that.

The yellow circle of light kept skirting around that particular area, half-way across the ballroom. Most of the furnishings had been removed by Jordan's men and the colonial police, leaving the room hardly more than a pretty shell. "What will you do after all of this is over?" Quatre's head was now resting on his left palm, eyes following the light. "Try to reenlist?"

Wu Fei snorted. "Hell no. I don't know what I'm going to do. What about you?"

"I--I haven't thought about it." Now he was flicking the flashlight on and off absently. It reminded Wu Fei for some reason of those ancient films from the beginning of the twentieth century. "Perhaps I'll go wherever you take me."

Wu Fei resisted the urge to box the other boy's ears, or maybe kiss him. "And where will I take you, dreamer?"

"China, America, Arabia. England and France. Russia." The smile Quatre gave him was wistful. "It's all the same. As long as you're there, and I'm there with you." He laughed, resting his blond head against Wu Fei's shoulder (sharp and uncomfortable as it was). A click, and the flashlight went out.

6/

"I'm glad you're feeling better," Quatre said sincerely.

Hana grunted, tugging nervously at her still damp hair. She smelled strongly of soap and floral shampoo, and over that, the coffee that had been her breakfast. "I'm going in to the office today with you. But first . . ." Instead of heading for the front door, she led Quatre into the parlor. She was momentarily glad that the bodyguard was waiting with the car outside the mansion; she wasn't sure if she'd have the nerve to say this in front of him.

Quatre sat on the sofa next to Hana, and curiously took the book she handed him, immediately flipping it open and then. Staring. "Hana . . ." His pale fingers passed over the first page almost as if he wasn't sure it was real. "Hana, what . . . what is this?" She said nothing. Allowed him time to turn the pages, take in the pictures--time to realize exactly what these were. He returned to the first page, fingering the edge of the photograph taped there. "Who is this, Hana? Who's this woman next to Father?"

"Your mother," Hana said tonelessly.

7/

_Mother?_

The day went by in a blur of activity that he took part in, but at the same time kept his distance from. He could feel a little piece of himself that was still a child fall away. Kept thinking, when, and how, and most of all, what for. His mother. He had a mother. Flesh and blood. So what. She was gone now; he'd never known her. What did it matter?

But she had existed. He remembered the wedding photo, the first one he'd seen. He rather resembled her. She existed on his face.

_Mother._

He could almost understand why his father had not breathed a word of the truth to him. Suddenly it was as if a veil, thin but there all the same, had been put up between him and his sisters, him and the Maganac Corps. He was . . . normal now. Basically. Flesh and blood. _They've always known_, he thought, stunned.

He didn't tell Wu Fei.

8/

That night when Hana, Quatre, and Wu Fei arrived at the Winner home, they discovered a package unopened in a chair near the entryway. One of the few remaining servants had brought it in and left it there. Hana warned them that they had better have it checked, but Quatre recognized the handwriting and was immediately ripping open the box, pulling out bubble sheets and a flat round object that turned out to be a tiny vid-disc.

"From a friend," Quatre said calmly, giving Wu Fei a significant look that only earned him a raised eyebrow in return.

When they were alone in his room, Quatre placed the vid-disc carefully in his player and waited for the visual to show on his television. Nothing came except what looked to be dark fabric passing back and forth across the screen. Then voices. Sounds of a struggle. A boy's voice, clearly, "C-Cathrine?"

"Trowa," Quatre said a little desperately.

"Shit," said Wu Fei.

A girl's scream, and Trowa again, calling that name. "Shut up, you little bastard!" A coarse male voice growled. A thump, as if something had collided with the camera, and then the television became snowy; visual and sound were out. Just as Quatre was moving to get up and take the vid-disc out, the screen went dark again, and a man said in an overly friendly tone, "It's a cruel world out there..."


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Chapter Fourteen**

1/

Trowa lay in his cell, deep in thought. The only light now came from outside, in the hallway; he could hear whispered transactions and propositions from other cells, but he ignored these.

He hoped Cathrine had found the circus somewhere, and was safe with the people she cared about. It had been a real pain to get all that information to Heero. The rope binding his hands together had been unusually thick, and it had taken him the better part of an hour to free himself from the chair; first he'd maneuvered until his arms were behind his back instead of wrapped around the back of the chair. Then he'd pushed himself to the floor, twisting so that the chair was under him, propping up his legs. The bonds securing his ankles to the chair legs had been looser than they should have been, and after a while he'd had first one, then both feet free. He'd listened to make sure that there was no one on the other side of the closed door, and then had approached the communications center, which was really just a desk with three computers (one of them an incredibly old model, the other two relatively new); he'd awkwardly opened the drawers to the desk with his back to them, and then shuffled through the contents until he found what turned out to be a pocket-knife. He used this to cut his hands loose.

He'd silently thanked his captors for being so careless before reaching into the cuff of his right sleeve, where one of the surveilance cameras that the men had installed at his and Cathrine's trailer was concealed. Of course it was impossible for the recording to show the faces of his captors, but he basically had proof that he wasn't involved with the assassination attempt; quickly he hooked the camera up to the old computer model (whose interface he could manipulate more easily) and uploaded the recording to the internet, where he sent it as an attachment to Heero Yuy, along with a quick message instructing him what to do with the file and how to contact his sister at the appropriate time.

By now the vid-disc Heero should have burned would have arrived at the Winner Estate; if all went well, he would be cleared of all charges within a month and Cathrine would be out of danger, in the company of her circus-family. And then he'd make sure that those men were tracked down, and made them answer for their crimes. A series of events, indeed.

For now, he could only wait.

2/

Somewhere in the universe, Wu Fei was sure, things were going well.

He'd never expected to find himself anywhere in the vacinity of a courtroom, let alone waiting just outside one along with about twelve eager reporters, who were practically drooling with anticipation. _Dogs_, the Chinese boy thought scathingly, leaning back against the wall. His black eyes never left the door dividing the courtroom from the rest of the building.

Presently the door opened and dark-suited individuals filed out, men and women murmuring among themselves as the reporters pounced on the most notable among them, questions running from their mouths like water from a chalice. Wu Fei watched all of this warily, until his eyes settled on a familiar form. Quatre Winner waved cheerfully, though he seemed a little paler than usual.

"Acquitted," the boy said breathlessly when he'd reached his bodyguard. "He--he is all right!" Quatre's slender arms went about Wu Fei's neck in a fit of sudden affection and relief; he was trembling slightly.

Wu Fei held him for a moment, then gently laid a hand on his back and directed him out of the building into the sunlight. There they waited together until the crowd had abated a little and, at last, the lone figure of Trowa Barton appeared. His skin had taken on a grayish tinge--from repressed fear or lack of proper nutrition, Wu Fei wasn't sure. Nimbly he dodged the few remaining reporters and nodded a hello to his two former comrades.

"I owe you my life," he said sincerely. The faint breeze blew his brown hair awry for a moment; his gaze was more watchful than it had been, even during the wars.

"Not at all," Quatre was laughing. "I'm amazed that you thought to do all that--what you explained in there," he waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the courthouse. "I'm so glad that you . . ." Words gave way to a bright smile that Trowa responded to with a tiny one of his own.

"Me too," he said.

"Where are you going now?"

Trowa cocked his head to one side. "Home," he finally said.

3/

The sun had not yet gone down, casting blood-red rays upon the already wilting shrubbery outside the window-sill that Quatre was perched upon. Soon the false colonial summer would be coming to an end. The men who had desired his life were being pursued (thanks to information from Trowa and, surprisingly, Heero Yuy, who had apparently known of Trowa's innocence all along).

God was in his heaven, as the saying went.

Slowly Quatre studied the photographs in the book on his lap. They were wedding pictures, of his father and mother (strange to think of that woman in that way); baby pictures of his sisters--he even found Hana, bald and monkey-like, her eyes twisted closed. Many photos of a young Iria sitting in Father's lap, hair in lop-sided pig-tails. His family. They looked so happy. The only one missing from this book was him.

He shut the book carefully, laying it aside and shifting his position so that he could rest against the wall behind him. Idly he tapped his fingers against his bent knees, gazing into the relative gloom of the room. Wu Fei was sitting in a chair before the dead fireplace, a novel open against his stomach but unread, judging by the soft snores emanating from him. Wispy locks of hair had escaped from the tie that usually held them in neat submission, and framed his smooth Oriental face. Even in sleep a little frown was upon his lips.

_I don't know where you will go now that our adventure is finished, Wu Fei_, Quatre thought, smiling a little. _I only hope it won't be so far that I can't follow. I'm sure we can find more adventures together._

4/

Cathrine felt her heart go into her throat, catching her breath. The sweat from that morning's practice dripped into her eyes, and she impatiently wiped it away. He was there. Coming off the main road, approaching the circus grounds, exhausted but calmly making his way inexorably closer. When he caught sight of her, he allowed himself an honest smile, and waved.

She waved back. Trowa was home.


End file.
